


Crossed Out

by Haze



Series: Resetverse [1]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Blood Magic, Drug Use, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, Sci Fi Soft as a Baby's Bottom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:44:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 104,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haze/pseuds/Haze
Summary: There are three principles behind what They do. One: certain events must happen. Two: they must happen in the correct order. Three: they must happen at the correct points in their respective timelines. When one of these criteria is not met, someone has to fix it.Frank was just supposed to get Gerard on the damn boat and go home.Of course, sometimes the universe has its own ideas.





	1. Jinx

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with this story while on an insane solo road trip I took all the way up and down California in three days after I broke up with my ex. Funnily enough, it didn't start as a fic. I hadn't written fic in several years, MCR fic in particular in even longer, and at first all I had was the basic concept behind Them. But when I posted up in my hotel room after eleven straight hours of driving to start organizing my thoughts in written form, I put on TBP for background noise and was struck by a thought: would MCR still exist if Gerard hadn't been on the ferry that morning? And then it was like a universe of ideas exploded into creation in front of my eyes, and I started outlining. The concept snowballed into something I didn't expect, something bigger and crazier and with more moving parts than I thought I wanted, but it's been an absolute pleasure to explore. I've always loved slightly weird AUs, and now I'm finally writing one. I hope you all enjoy. <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The date was September 7th, 2001. Gerard would remember that later.

In Gerard’s defense, he wasn’t staring at the guy in, like, a _creepy_ way or anything. He was just trying to get the details right. Drawing a subject in constant motion was like trying to throw a dart at a moving board. A frenetically moving board that kept spinning around to rinse steaming pitchers and talk to people waiting for coffee and bending to grab a gallon of milk out of the fridge at his knee at, fucking, a million miles a second. Gerard wasn’t even sure what color the guy’s eyes were, he was moving so much. Did this dude ever stand still? It reminded Gerard of a hummingbird. Yes, that. If you stuck a hummingbird in a bell jar and just let it ping around against the glass like a feathered Pong simulation, it would look something similar to what the Current Subject for Totally Un-still Life Portraiture was doing behind the espresso bar. It was _fascinating_. He could so use that kind of motion in Breakfast Monkey. Maybe, like, some kind of coffee character? A cartoon latte? It was fluid motion for sure, that could translate over visually, you didn’t have to be _shaking_ to be super caffeinated after all, fluid motion made sensefor a being made of coffee - 

Okay, too many ideas, not enough sketching. Gerard scrawled a quick note grasping at that train of thought in the upper corner and hoped he’d be able to decipher it later.

It was really impressive just _how_ fluid the guy’s motion was, considering Gerard had never seen him in here before, and Gerard came to this coffee shop more often than he went to his own house, probably, but hello, it was like five blocks to the ferry terminal that he was in literally every weekday of his life and what was he supposed to do? Make his own coffee? Gerard had barely enough working brain cells first thing in the morning to get dressed, thanks, he wasn’t going to try to create a coffee-making routine that he would inevitably forget about and then end up having to come here anyway. Besides, he got paid a salary now. (Albeit a shitty, intern-level one.) He could throw as much money as he wanted at coffee he didn’t have to brew himself. Gerard didn’t even see the guy come in, actually, he’d already gotten his latte and set up shop in his usual spot when he happened to look up from _Harley Quinn #10_ and, well. Next thing he knew he was reaching for his sketchbook.

“Therese, rice milk latte with cardamom for you.”

So the guy had to be new, was the logical conclusion. But he didn’t move like the other newbies Gerard had seen; they were at least a little bit clumsy to start, more hesitant, unsure of the rhythm to making drinks. This guy - Frank, he finally read off of the guy’s elusive name tag, Jesus, he’d only been trying to see it for fifteen minutes - he moved like he’d been born there. Wasn’t even looking at his hands half the time. He must’ve been a barista somewhere else, for awhile, by the look of it. Anyway, what had really caught Gerard’s attention, other than Frank’s kinetics and the newness of him, were his tattoos. They were amazing, and he had more of them than skin, practically, and he _would not fucking hold still long enough_ for Gerard to draw them the way he wanted to, god damn it. Hence the staring. The absolutely not creepy staring. 

Also, he was kind of jonesing for something to do with his hands that wasn’t smoking or shoving them through his hair, because he was out of cigarettes and his hair was starting to feel gross. Today was the day the network would get back to him about whether they were going to pick up Breakfast Monkey or not, and he was so anxious about it that he’d almost puked in the shower that morning and he’d accidentally smoked all of his mom’s menthols at the kitchen table. She let him, though, which spoke to the gravity of the situation. (She’d been annoyed about it, but she didn’t say anything and just read the paper instead. Which was nice. Gerard loved his mom.) This was Gerard’s only real shot at his own cartoon, and he could not fuck it up, because he did not have any backup plan whatsoever and he sure as shit was not going to teach or god forbid, work _retail._ The whole point of going into debt for art school was to avoid retail and retail-adjacent professions.

So far the only one of Frank’s tattoos he was sure he’d nailed was the one of the left side of his neck, because it was the one facing him the most often and when it was, it didn’t move much. Gerard didn’t even have a body to affix it to, just a series of aborted figures in various coffee-making poses hastily penciled on top of one another. He’d doodled it off to the side of the main sketch in its own little study. He stuck the eraser end of his pencil into his mouth and held the sketchpad at arms length to examine his work. It looked sort of like he’d jumbled all of his animation tracing papers together on the light board. It looked like a fucking mess. He frowned at it with all his might, went to rip it off of the pad, and then thought better of it when he realized it had the only coherent tattoo sketch on it. Instead, he flipped violently to a fresh page and felt a little better.

He didn’t make a habit of drawing the baristas here or anything. Actually, he’d never tried before today. He normally did just his regular work; Breakfast Monkey concepts, bat-humanoids, David Bowie but dressed in Tom Cruise’s costume from _Interview With the Vampire, _normal stuff. In fact he rarely did live studies of real people, not since art school at any rate, mostly because people sort of made Gerard uncomfortable and especially so when there was that intimate element of trying to capture their essence in a drawing, which was the point of live studies. He took inspiration from real people, of course. People on the subway and the ferry and stuff. Sometimes a person had a really cool nose, or their outfit was awesome, or they made a particular expression that Gerard hadn’t seen before, and the bits and pieces of humanity that stuck with him wound up in his art. That was inevitable, he figured. But he never really _drew them. _Until now.

The problem, he decided, was that he had no sense of place. In the sketch, that is. There was no context for the movement and it felt chaotic without the background of the bar and the rest of the shop. Gerard glanced around to size up the pertinent details. The shop itself was tiny, which was the way he liked it honestly, it meant fewer people for him to suffer. All the windows were on the street-facing side. Four spindly-legged, tall tables with two stools each occupied each window. The bar took up most of the floor space - its pine (? Gerard thought it was maybe pine but he also didn’t know much about wood) counter went in a big L around the machines and you could sit at the shorter side, which was where Gerard liked to set up because there was only one stool and no one could try to share his spot. Sometimes when the shop was busy people would stand practically on top of him while they waited on their coffee, but the shop usually wasn’t busy, so it was fine. Behind Gerard’s spot was a wall, where a couple of bright orange, kind of dingy-looking upholstered armchairs with a beat to hell coffee table between them waited in vain for anyone to sit in them. (Gerard had never once seen them occupied in all the weeks he’d been coming here since he started at Cartoon Network. He felt a little sad for the things. Not sad enough to give up his place on the bar, though.) The opposite wall had a huge, amazing mural of a coffee plant on it that Gerard was not even going to try to replicate for a sketch, and the wall behind the bar had the chalkboard menu on it. Various coffee appliances took up the majority of the counter space, most of it dedicated to the espresso machine, shiny and loud and quite busy at the moment. And in the middle of it all, of course, was Frank, still swirling around like a motherfucker. Gerard watched him flick a stray lock of black hair out of his face before he ducked down to reach into a red bucket for a wiping cloth.

He could admit to himself that yeah, much of the reason he’d started drawing Frank was that he was hot. Gerard was allowed to find people hot. He was not being _creepy_. He wasn’t. Creepy would be like, openly ogling his ass and then just drawing that. He was _observing._ It was different, duh.

_Drawing,_ his brain shouted at him, and he shook his head a little, checked his watch. “Fuck,” he said out loud when it told him that he only had five minutes to catch the ferry back to work. Drawing would have to wait. Gerard shoved his pencil behind his ear, scrambled off of the barstool - out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed Frank starting to turn toward him - and stuffed his sketchpad into his bag before draining the last of his coffee and making a break for the door. As he shouldered his way out he lifted his chin and made a nanosecond of accidental eye contact with Frank, who looked…surprised? But then Gerard was on the sidewalk, and the afternoon sun shot directly into his eyeballs, and he didn’t have time to decide whether it was actually surprise or if Frank just wanted to tell him to have a good day or something. 

The date was September 7th, 2001. Gerard would remember that later.

* * *

By the time he got home that night, Gerard had mostly forgotten about Frank and the drawing because his fucking life was over. The producer who’d heard the Breakfast Monkey pitch finally pulled him and Joe into a conference room and delivered the verdict: they were passing. Too similar, blah blah blah, so sorry, keep drawing. Bastards. The entire fucking reason for his fucking internship was toast, and now he’d have to get absorbed into some other bullshit project he didn’t care about, and everything sucked, and Gerard hated his goddamn motherfucking bitch of a _life._ He flung himself face first into a miserable heap on his bed and screamed into the comforter.

What the fuck was he supposed to do now?

He ignored his mom when she came down to ask him what he wanted for dinner, and ignored her again when she came back down to tell him she’d made lasagna and he’d better eat it because she slaved over it, and then when she returned much later with a gin and tonic for him he finally mustered the energy to flop his head into her lap and bawl out the whole story. How Joe was so pissed that he punched the elevator door and put a ding in it. How Gerard had taken down all the Breakfast Monkey stuff from his cubicle walls, and then ran away to cry in the stairwell. That Asshole Glenn from six cubes down came in to touch all his action figures and move them ever-so-infuriatingly out of place and tell Gerard all about his pitch that day, and how well it went, and how excited they were about his concept, and so much other slime that by the time he left, Gerard felt like his entire cube was covered in kiss-ass ooze. His mom patiently let him sniffle and snot all over her jeans, and petted his hair.

“Baby, your life is not _over,_” she told him when he’d finished.

“It is,” Gerard insisted. By now he was clutching his gin and tonic against his stomach, where a little circle of condensation had stained his shirt. He took a long sip from it before he went on, “I got this internship because they were looking for new work, and now they don’t want my work, and I’m fucked. I’ll have to get a job at, I don’t know, fucking _Blockbuster_ or something.” He sniffled a little, eyes refilling at the thought of wearing a vest. Sapphire blue was so not his color.

“No, you’re being a drama queen.” She raised her eyebrows at him when he dropped his jaw in exaggerated surprise. “Gerard, you told me your life was over when they stopped selling that shampoo you liked at Walmart.”

He remembered. In fairness, he’d been viciously hungover and his girlfriend had just dumped him, and bursting into tears in the haircare aisle at the Kearny Walmart had felt like the appropriate reaction at the time. Plus, that shampoo was the only one that made his hair hang straight. He gave his mother a rueful look in response.

“You’ll be fine,” she went on, ignoring the (probably pitiful) expression. “You always have more ideas, even when you think you can’t, and there’ll be a place at the table for at least one of those ideas. Rejection is good, remember? Makes you a better artist."

Gerard rolled his eyes. “Literally no one thinks that, Mom.”

“Grandma told me that one. You want to tell Grandma she’s wrong?” Gerard said nothing, and pouted, because no, of course he didn’t. His mom patted his cheek. “Maybe you should call her and let her tell you herself. I left your plate in the oven for you if you get hungry. More gin in the freezer.”

He sat up to let her stand, and as she started back up the stairs, he called after her, “Mom? I love you.”

She smiled at him from over the banister. “You better. I’m fabulous.” He snorted, and she called over her shoulder before pulling the door shut, “Clean up your room, you fucking slob,” and Gerard laughed, and felt the weight on the middle of his chest lift a little.

He nursed his gin and tonic a little longer while he paced around the room, tossing the dirty laundry in the hamper and gathering up all the dishes to take upstairs. He paused for a moment over the Breakfast Monkey storyboards he’d put together with Joe, remembering how nervous he’d been just before they went into the room and Joe nudging him a little with that weird, crooked smile and murmuring _dude, they’ll love it, don’t get hand sweat all over my ink_, and Gerard had giggled, and they did their pitch. God, they’d been so sure. And everyone had seemed so positive and smiley about everything - but it didn’t matter. They didn’t want it, and now Gerard was back to square fucking one. He drained his glass, swore, and took the dishes upstairs so he wouldn’t have to look at his failure anymore.

While he was up there, he ate his lasagna - so good, holy shit, if Gerard was ever on death row he’d for sure ask for Donna Way’s Eat-This-You-Sad-Fuck Lasagna, which was its actual name given to it by Mikey - and called his grandma even though it was almost ten o’clock by then. He cried again over the phone while he recounted the story, but by the time he hung up he felt miles better than he had, and he was in the middle of fixing another gin and tonic to take downstairs when the back door popped open and whacked into the wall.

“Mikey!” he said, as his little brother staggered over the threshold and into the kitchen. “Hey, you good?”

“So _fuckin’_ good,” Mikey agreed, grinning, and scraped out a chair to spill into. “It’s gonna be a good weekend, good, good month, good _life_, dude. Fuck yeah!” He thrust both fists in the air in triumph, and Gerard giggled at him.

“Getting an early start on your birthday, I see.” Even though Mikey clearly didn’t need one, he made him a gin and tonic too, and Mikey accepted it with both hands and a happy sort of sound. “Thought you would be gone this whole weekend, actually.”

Mikey drank a huge gulp of cocktail and nodded earnestly at Gerard. “M’gonna. This is pregame. Julie’s gonna pick me up innnnnn…ten minutes,” he decided, after squinting at the oven clock. “Wanna come?”

Gerard pretended to think about it for a few seconds, then shook his head. “Nah, you have fun. I’d be kind of a drag tonight anyway.”

He waited for Mikey to look up with that scrutinizing face and pick out exactly what it was that was making Gerard sad, but he didn’t, and that’s how he knew Mikey had totally crossed drunk event horizon. Oh well. He’d tell him about it tomorrow, or possibly Sunday, if Mikey was gonna be useless and/or gone tomorrow. When Mikey polished off his drink with two more chugs, Gerard took his glass from him and filled it up with tap water instead before handing it back to Mikey with his eyebrows raised. Mikey didn’t seem to notice. He was telling Gerard about the club they were going to tonight, and how Mikey was pretty sure the owner was going to hire him as a promoter when he was actually twenty-one for real, since he was always bringing people there and they didn’t card him because of that, seriously Gerard they are _so_ nice there, he had to come for Mikey’s birthday party, promise he’d come? And Gerard nodded his solemn duty that yes, he would come, and Mikey grinned at him in that big way he only did when he was plastered, and Gerard made him drink another glass of water before a towering, beautiful woman with a bright blue afro came to collect Mikey at the front door. She shared a look with Gerard, the kind reserved for two sober people who are taking mutual responsibility for a third drunk person, and bundled him outside with a wave. 

It made Gerard a little wistful. Mikey’d been so shy before he started college, Gerard had wondered from time to time if he would ever find his tribe. And then he did, in what felt like no time at all, and even though Mikey came home every weekend he never stayed in the house (awake) for very long. Gerard missed him. They hadn’t had a zombie movie marathon in months.

His heart was heavier when he went back down to the basement. The feeling got worse when he looked at the storyboards again, so he stuffed them out of sight behind an overburdened bookshelf and sat back down on the bed, feeling sorry for himself all over again. He decided he’d be less miserable if he slept, so he pulled down the comforter until it got stuck on his bag that he’d forgotten he’d thrown there, and when he went to grab it and toss it on the floor, his sketchbook fell out. Oh, right. Frank. He carefully picked up the sketchbook and flipped it to the page he’d tried to forget earlier. They weren’t _bad_, he decided, after a few seconds of study. They were rough, for sure, and stacking them on top of each other was dizzying, but they were workable. Maybe if he concentrated on one pose, he could build from there. Still needed sense of place though. He frowned at the scribbles in the top right corner - what the fuck did that say? God, he needed to work on his handwriting - and his fingers drifted down to the tattoo study. As far as tattoos went, it wasn’t the most visually interesting one Frank had, but beggars couldn’t be choosers since he couldn’t fucking see any of the other ones long enough and at any rate it probably came with a cool story. It was old-school, a pair of scissors with a ribbon banner that said “JINX REMOVING” and some numbers underneath that were arranged like a date: 2-5-07. Gerard wondered what it meant. The date was weird since it hadn’t happened yet, unless it was referring to 1907, which was interesting. Maybe it was a family curse that went all the way back to then. Maybe a psychic told him something hinky would happen to him on February 5th, 2007. Or maybe it wasn’t a date at all, but a safe code, or coordinates, or the day Frank thought he would die, or…He fell asleep still theorizing, sketchpad in hand.

* * *

Across town, in the world’s draftiest apartment (or at least New Jersey’s), a battlefield trauma kit had been assembled along the bathroom counter. Kinda. Mostly it consisted of bandages and gauze, along with some Advil, a bottle of disinfectant, stuff for stitches, and one very sharp, very shiny disposable scalpel. Frank had to take another swig out of his Maker’s Mark bottle staring at it. Jesus, did he really have to do this? He could just get it covered up. In fact, that was his first suggestion to Them after he got Their first message, because _seriously_? Mutilation was Their best idea? It didn’t even have to fit in with the design, he could just do solid black, come on please it was a _tiny_ oversight _please_ just let him get it covered up, it wasn’t his fault that Gerard Fucking Way happened to gawk at it - 

But They insisted. Didn’t want any more people seeing it and getting confused. “Please send proof of completion.” They were definitely punishing him for fucking up. They could be cruel when They wanted to make Their point.

Why did he ever get the fucking thing on his _neck,_ Frank despaired, eyes still locked on the scalpel. He was going to fucking bleed to death in this outdated awful bathroom and shit, maybe that was what They wanted, it occurred to him all of a sudden. They were tired of Frank screwing the pooch and wanted him to take himself out. He imagined the terminal clean guys coming to incinerate the apartment, picking his bones out of the wreckage, scattering them in, fucking, prehistoric France or something. It wasn’t the first time he’d imagined his own death. By now it was a kind of defense mechanism. Death wasn’t even the worst thing that could happen to him. That honor belonged to - well - he didn’t want to think about it. They could make that happen just as easily, and would if he didn’t follow Their instructions. Scalpel it was. 

He chugged a good fourth of the bottle and set it down with a solid thunk on the edge of the bathtub. Maybe he should do this in the bathtub? Make less of a mess. But then, he wouldn’t be able to see what he was doing. Fuck, he was nervous. The whiskey had been to steady his hands a little, but they were still trembling, and that didn’t bode well for not severing Frank’s jugular and/or carotid artery. He turned his head and peered at his tattoo in the mirror. _Some jinx removal._ He looked tired, he noticed, tilting his chin this way and that to get a good look at himself. Tired and older. He wondered how old he really was, now. He used to keep track in the beginning, but it was easy to fall behind, and now he didn’t bother. Didn’t make much difference. Linear time was meaningless anyway.

But to business.

Frank picked up the scalpel. It felt surprisingly light in his fingers, more like a pencil than a razor sharp instrument of doom. He held it to his throat and pulled a horror-victim face at himself in the mirror. “These are my friends,” he sang to his reflection, and giggled a little hysterically, then shuffled in closer to the mirror. He wished it was brighter in here. The overhead light cast weird shadows in a sickly yellow that made Frank look jaundiced and forced him to squint to see the details he was carving out of his skin. Jesus. He allowed himself a full body shudder, and dropped the scalpel back onto its towel. Probably best to prep the gauze and bandages before the bleeding began.

Twenty minutes later, Frank lay curled up in the bathtub with a huge wad of gauze pressed to his throat, willing himself not to pass out. Fucking fuck that was awful, God, there was not enough bourbon in the _world_ to get that image out of his head, but he was trying. The Maker’s Mark was all but gone. Which might have been why he hadn’t stopped bleeding, despite the stitches that he’d had to do _himself holy fuck why_. He gulped down the last inch or so of bourbon and groaned when his neck throbbed at him. Performing cosmetic surgery on himself was so not in his fucking wheelhouse.

His Them phone went off on the counter a billion miles away. He flipped it off, and then pulled himself up to his feet, wincing and complaining all the while. When he was upright, he took the gauze away to check on the bleeding. “Gahhhh,” he said, and pushed it back over the stitches again. Blood was not his thing either. Not a whole bunch of it. And not _his._ He grabbed for the phone.

_Please send proof of completion._

“Fucking ghouls,” Frank muttered. He shut his eyes, pulled the gauze away again, and held his phone out at arm’s length to snap a picture of the stitches. “Here’s your motherfucking proof, Big Brother.”

He waited for the response, which came unnervingly quick as usual.

_Further contact with subject Gerard Way will be monitored for tampering. Failure to comply in accordance with mission rules will result in redundancy._

Frank threw up his hands and almost winged his phone into the bathtub. “What the fuck! It was one tattoo! I gave you assholes my pound of flesh, give me a break!” He managed to restrain himself from typing exactly that in his response, just shot off the standard reply and sank down on the edge of the bathtub. Therein lay the problem, was the thing. He’d been giving them pounds of flesh over and over again for years. They owned him. He owed Them. Frank ran his free hand over his face and let out a sigh that turned into a growl of frustration.

This was the last event chain that needed repair. The only thing keeping him from going home was making sure Gerard Way got onto the 9:00 AM ferry that Tuesday, September 11th. He could not fuck this up. He couldn’t.

Also, he was probably going to have to burn Gerard’s sketchbook.


	2. Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I just want you to feel better, Gerard."

Gerard was woken up at some miserable hour the next morning by Mikey flinging himself onto Gerard’s bed. One of his spiky elbows connected with Gerard’s ribcage and Gerard made a complaining sound at him, but Mikey had passed out a quarter of a second before, so he gave up and wiggled over to make room. A couple hours later, he woke up again when Mikey shot up out of bed and bailed down the hall. He listened in wincing sympathy to sounds of retching coming from his bathroom, decided he should probably help, and shuffled upstairs to grab a glass of water and start some coffee. (Weekends were the only days he was willing to engage with the coffeemaker, on the grounds that he didn’t have to leave the house.)

His mom waved from where she was about to walk out the back door. “Mikey make it back okay?” She had on her errands outfit and her sunglasses in one hand. The other was digging around inside her purse. “I didn’t hear him come home.”

“Pretty much.” Gerard rummaged through the cupboard next to the coffeemaker for the fancy dark roast Mikey liked. “He’s puking.”

“Lovely. I’ll pick up some Gatorade.” Behind him, the door creaked open, and golden sunlight poured into the kitchen. It was still cool out - Gerard took a breath as the morning air crept in, ripe with dewy mineral smell and maybe the very first hint of autumn. It reminded him he hadn’t had a cigarette yet. He took out Mikey’s favorite Han Solo mug and his own Army of Darkness one and clinked them down on the counter. “Need anything at the store?” his mom continued, keys jingling. “I know we need milk.”

Gerard shrugged, and yawned. “Will to live?” he said, mostly joking, and started the coffee. When he turned back around, his mom was giving him an inscrutable Look. “What?”

She said nothing for a long time, just squinted at him with her mouth sort of pursed. Gerard felt like she was trying to X-ray vision him. He shifted, uncomfortable, tried horror-movie grinning at her, and when The Look still didn’t go away he threw up his hands. “Jesus! I was joking, will you stop looking at me like that?”

The Look softened, but didn’t altogether fade - Gerard was startled to see it turn abruptly sad. His heart dropped. He started to reach for her, stepping over the cracked linoleum. “Mom, come on - “

That seemed to snap her out of it. She shook herself a little, looked down at the floor for a second, and then raised her chin to look him in the eye. “Listen,” she started to say. It took her another moment and a deep breath to get going again. “Gerard, I know you’ve been having a hard time since you graduated from school, but I want you to know - “

“Oh, Christ,” Gerard moaned, pressing both hands over his face. He so did not want a depression pep talk. At all. For fuck’s sake, he was _kidding_.

“I want you to know that I support you no matter what,” she continued firmly. He peeked at her through his fingers. She’d put her sunglasses on to avoid looking at him, too, meaning that she was enjoying this even less than he was. “I already told you, you can stay here as long as you need to while you figure out the job stuff. If you want to go back on your antidepressants, we can talk to your father about getting you back in with that therapist in Jersey City.”

Gerard was already shaking his head before she’d finished. “I don’t want to take that shit anymore. It makes me feel like a fuckin’ zombie and it would be a huge waste of money for you and Dad. No.” He turned around and ripped open the silverware drawer. They’d had this conversation already. He was sick of it, sick of the insistence that numbing himself into apathy was somehow better than the depression itself. Off the drugs he felt like garbage, sure, but on them he couldn’t make art, which was worse. He braced his hands against the countertop and stared at the coffee trickling into the pot, cheeks burning.

His mom was silent for a few moments, and then she sighed. Gerard heard the screen door shriek on its hinges. For a moment he thought she’d left, that the conversation was over, but after another pause he heard her say quietly, “I just want you to feel better, Gerard.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. So he said nothing. The back door shut with a whump not long after. His head dropped between his arms, and he closed his eyes, and let out a long breath. Fuck. He knew she was trying to help, but Christ, he was not in the _mood_, not to mention he just woke up and that had been a stupid offhand comment anyway. Ever since he’d quit the antidepressants, it seemed like his mom was waiting for him to explode or something. He should’ve expected this after yesterday. Maybe opening up to her like that was a bad idea if all it did was make her worry about him. The coffee spluttered to completion, and he went through the motions of pouring without really paying attention, half-remembering before he took his first sip to blow on it. His thoughts were starting to slosh around unpleasantly inside his head; he noticed his hands were shaking, so he put down the mug and cast about the kitchen for cigarettes instead. It was too early to have a freakout. Nicotine would help.

A light breeze carded through his hair as he stepped onto the porch, fumbling to spark his lighter with one hand. The light had a definite autumnal slant to it, Gerard decided. September was a weird month. To him, it always felt like it was having an identity crisis, oscillating between summer and fall from week to week. He wondered how Mikey felt being born in a month that didn’t know what it wanted to be. At last the cigarette lit, and with the first drag he managed to relax, leaning on his forearms against the railing. Mornings were nice. They happened too early, but there was something to the hush and the fresh air that was kind of meditative. 

He stood out by himself for awhile, the sun slowly warming up the top of his head and the tip of his nose, and he was putting out his second cigarette when the screen door opened and the railing shifted as Mikey staggered out with both of their mugs. “Morning, sunshine.”

Mikey shook his head at him. He was white-knuckling his coffee, and his glasses were nowhere to be seen. His eyes were screwed shut like he was afraid to open them, and given how bright it had gotten since Gerard had come out here, Gerard didn’t much blame him. “Feel like shit.” He handed Gerard his mug and wrapped his now free hand around his own. “Don’t remember getting home.”

“Not surprised. You were already wasted before you went out to that club.” He offered Mikey a cigarette, which Mikey refused. “Maybe you should drink some water.”

“Can we go back inside?” said Mikey, eyes still closed. “It’s too much out here, I feel like I’m gonna hurl again.”

Gerard pushed himself off the railing, and followed Mikey back into the kitchen and down to the cool darkness of the basement. He snagged another glass of water for him on the way. When he returned to his bed, Mikey had already curled up facedown on one side. Gerard grimaced at him - poor kid - and set down his cups on the nightstand to grab his trash can from under his desk. He set it at the foot of the bed, and carefully climbed in next to Mikey, who didn’t move except to press his knee against Gerard’s calf. “How many times did you puke?” Gerard asked. Mikey held up two fingers. “Did you eat anything last night?”

“Nnnn,” came the muffled, dissenting reply. Gerard rolled his eyes.

“Well, no wonder you feel like shit, dumbass, you’re too skinny to drink on an empty stomach.” Mikey flipped him off. Gerard patted his hip. “The good news is you probably won’t throw up again.”

Mikey raised his head off the pillow just enough to talk. “I still want to.”

“Duh. Welcome to the rest of your day.” Mikey moaned and dropped his head back down. Gerard gave him another sympathetic pat, and reached for his coffee. They were quiet for a couple of minutes until Mikey rolled over onto his other side and made a sound of discomfort. He felt around under the sheet for a second, and then emerged with Gerard’s sketchbook, still flipped to the page of Frank’s study.

“Why were you cuddling your sketchbook?” said Mikey, and Gerard snatched the book away from him and chucked it frisbee-style across the room.

“I was not _cuddling _it, shut up.” “Fell asleep holding it" was not a less embarrassing explanation, though, so Gerard gulped down some more coffee to avoid having to say anything else about it.

Mikey shrugged. “Cute guy.”

One thing they had never actually talked about so much as alluded to every now and again with hand gestures and vague statements was each other’s sexuality. Maybe that was weird, but it didn’t seem like a big deal to Gerard. He knew Mikey knew that Gerard liked guys; he hadn’t exactly tried to hide it, and Mikey knew everything else about him, so. There wasn’t really a need to say anything. Likewise, he knew Mikey wasn’t 100% straight either. It was fine. Someday if the need arose they’d talk.

Gerard thought about Frank’s tattoos, and the red Doc Martens he’d been wearing, and the sort of punk swoop to his hair, and nodded. “Very cute. No idea if he’s single.”

It seemed like Mikey was going to press him for more Frank info, but an urgent look flashed across his face and he started to push himself up. “Hey, wait, I never asked you about how the pitch went. What’d they say?”

Ah. Just like that, the good mood he’d managed to build himself into was gone. Gerard stared down into his almost-empty mug with the anxiety from before his cigarette beginning to prickle at the edge of his mind. It must’ve taken him too long to reply, because Mikey’s face fell and all he said was, “Oh, shit.”

Gerard tried to shrug it off, but it was too late, his eyes were blurry. Mikey, bless him, didn’t comment on this, just curled up against Gerard’s side and dropped his head against his shoulder. Gerard ground the heel of his palm against his eye. “They said,” he started, and had to clear his throat. “They said it was too similar to _Aqua Teen Hunger Force_.”

“That show fucking sucks,” Mikey said instantly, which wasn’t true, but made Gerard feel a tiny bit better. He gave a wobbly smile. “Do you want me to burn down the office for you?”

He did laugh at that. “Actually, yeah. I want you to go to jail for your birthday.”

“I don’t care. I’ll do it.” Mikey thought for a second. “I’ll barf on them.”

“Jesus Christ!” Gerard was giggling now, imagining Mikey setting fire to all the cubes in his office and barfing on anyone who got in his way. Like the world’s most bizarre vigilante. A character design popped into his head - Barf Boy, in radioactive green and yellow, equipped with flamethrowers on both hands and huge splash goggles. He relayed the idea to Mikey, who cracked up, and then groaned.

“Don’t make me laugh, it hurts,” he complained, and wrapped an arm around Gerard’s middle. “They’re stupid. Breakfast Monkey is totally awesome and now they will pay.”

Gerard smiled, and leaned his cheek on top of Mikey’s head. He gazed at a poster of Bruce Campbell across the room, chewed on the inside of his lip for a couple of seconds, and finally he said, “Do you think I’m a good artist?”

There was a pause. “Is water wet?” Mikey replied, in a tone that conveyed loud and clear how dumb he found the question. Gerard snorted.

“But really. Like, am I good enough to do this for a living? Am I meant to be an artist my whole life?” He put his coffee up on the nightstand. “It feels like I’ve just been spinning my wheels since I left SVA, you know? Drawing other people’s projects, sitting in a cubicle, wishing I could be doing my own thing. And the one time I get a chance to do it, the door slams in my face and I’m right back to where I started.” He sighed, and thunked his head back against the wall. “I don’t know what to do. I feel stuck.”

Mikey moved away to sit up next to him, drawing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around his shins. To his credit, he looked like he was actually considering this. Gerard handed him the glass of water and picked up his own mug to drain it. Mikey tipped up his chin to look thoughtfully at the ceiling; after a while he said, “Can you imagine doing something else?”

Gerard bobbed his head back and forth, uncertain. “Kind of. I mean, I can’t imagine working retail - “ the _Blockbuster_ vest wavered menacingly into his mind’s eye - “or a fucking insurance claims job or something, but other forms of art. Comics. I could be a writer.” He liked to write. Poems mostly, but he’d written short stories and short graphic novel-type stuff. _Star Wars _fan fiction. The point was, he did it enough that he could get good at it if he wanted to.

“Music?” Mikey suggested, and Gerard glanced askance at him. Mikey shrugged. “Ray Gun Jones wasn’t bad. We all just got busy doing other stuff.”

That hadn’t occurred to him. His last band in art school had fallen apart and he’d figured that was a sign. “Man, I dunno.” Gerard pushed his hair out of his eyes. “I still suck at guitar. And most bands don’t need a singer.”

“Could start one.”

Gerard smiled at him. “You gonna play for it?”

“I could.” Mikey sniffed, pretending to look all uninterested and cool about it, which made Gerard laugh. “I’d have to find out what Mom did with my bass. Hopefully she didn’t sell it like she was threatening to.”

“She wasn’t really gonna sell it. She just wanted you to take it to school with you because you begged her for it that Christmas and she was pissed you were already over it.” Gerard nudged him and gestured at the glass of water; Mikey rolled his eyes and took a dutiful gulp. “We’d need a guitar player. And a drummer.”

Mikey reached over him to put his water back and snuggled down into Gerard’s comforter. “Like there aren’t a billion of them in Jersey. You could find one today if you wanted.”

“You going back to sleep?” said Gerard, as Mikey grabbed a pillow and sandwiched his head underneath it. The pillow moved in a way that suggested Mikey was nodding. “Thanks for cheering me up.”

“S’cool,” Mikey murmured, and a couple seconds later Gerard heard a light snore. He waited until Mikey was truly out before he got up to go back upstairs for more coffee. He smoked another quick cigarette too, just to kill a couple minutes while he decided what to do with the day, since he couldn’t go back to sleep now. No boards to work on - _not anymore_, he thought bitterly, and flicked ash onto the porch floor - but, oh. Maybe he could see if Frank was working. If anything, it would at least get him out of the house before his mom came home.

* * *

It was late morning edging into afternoon by the time Gerard made it up to Union City. The sun had gone back to sleep with Mikey behind some heavy-looking clouds, and as Gerard headed down the sidewalk toward the coffee shop it started sprinkling. Mostly it was just humid, which Gerard hated, because it made his hair tragic and also feel like his clothes were sticking to him. He caught a glimpse of himself in the door glass as he pulled it open and wished he hadn’t. Yeah, his hair was getting frizzy. Fuck. He ran a hand over it like that would help.

“Hey, welcome in - oh, it’s you!”

Gerard’s head shot up. Behind the counter, Frank bounced on the balls of his feet and beamed at him. “Uh,” said Gerard.

“You were here yesterday, right? Seemed like you were pretty busy, there was a lot of, like,” Frank gestured an exaggerated, frantic scribbling motion, “I didn’t really get a good look at you. But I did get very familiar with the top of your head.”

Gerard was beginning to realize he had not gotten a good look at Frank, either, despite spending upwards of half an hour drawing him. (Trying to draw him.) Details jumped out at him now that he paid attention - how small Frank was, the splattered brown apron he wore, his Bad Brains t-shirt and shredded black jeans, return of the red Docs Gerard had admired. Mostly he was realizing he hadn’t seen much of Frank’s face, which was terrible, because now he was doing _way_ too much looking at Frank’s face. His eyes were hazel, Gerard noticed at last. He had a lip ring, and perfect eyebrows, and a light dusting of stubble along his jaw and upper lip, and Gerard was totally, stupidly in love even before he dragged his gaze away long enough to see the huge bandage covering the tattoo he’d so painstakingly drawn not even a full day ago. A gasp flew out of his mouth before he could stop himself. “Oh my God, your neck!”

Frank looked thrown by this, clearly expecting Gerard to say something normal instead of making a total idiot out of himself, until he touched his hand to his neck and his face cleared. “Oh! Right, duh. Straight razor,” he said, and gave a high-pitched giggle that made Gerard’s heart do something scary in his chest. “Dude, get this. I was holding it like this, right,” and he demonstrated holding a razor to his throat with his other hand stretching the skin taut, “and I was just about to start when the goddamn wind blew through my apartment and slammed a door shut. I turned my head to see, and - “ He mimed slicing, including a sound effect. His hands dropped away, and he shook his head at himself, grinning. His teeth were just a tiny bit crooked and it was so endearing and Gerard was so fucked. “Real fuckin’ smart, right? Had to get eight stitches. I had to explain to, like, four different doctors that I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Gerard could only gape at him for several painful seconds before his brain screamed at him to say something, and he stammered out, “Holy shit, that’s - that’s wild, is your tattoo all fucked up?”

“I’ve been too afraid to look.” Frank brushed his fingertips over the bandage again almost as an afterthought, and then stuck his hand out over the counter. “I’m Frank, by the way. Sorry I just told you about Demon Barber-ing myself, that’s probably not the flavor of barista small talk you were looking for.”

Oh God, his heart was going to give out from the stress. He managed a weak smile, though, and to take Frank’s hand, which made his stomach flip over. “You got me all wrong, man. I wish every barista would tell me about their, um, lacerations. Wicked cool.” Oh God oh God why did he say words out loud he was so fucking awkward, Jesus, and he still hadn’t told him his name, and he was _still holding his fucking hand, oh God why_. He dropped Frank's hand like it was on fire and burst out with this horrible laugh that made him instantly want to crawl into a hole and die. “I’m Gerard.”

Frank’s eyes got huge, and for a split second Gerard was terrified he’d fucked up somehow until Frank said, “Your real name is Gerard?”

“Yeah, unfortunately, it really is,” said Gerard, and did that awful laugh again, and had to fight the urge to turn on his heel and bail right there. Luckily, Frank grinned at him again, which made him feel better enough that he didn’t actually do it.

“No, that’s a great name. Got a goth sort of feel to it, like old English vampire vibes, you know?” Frank licked his lips, and it was genuinely a miracle that Gerard didn’t pass away on the spot. This was too much. He liked vampires and Sweeney Todd, he had really cool hair and even cooler tattoos, and he thought Gerard’s stupid name was great. Frank was overwhelming: beautiful and candid and so vibrant, Gerard felt plain and prosaic talking to him. It didn’t help that he couldn’t get out a goddamn sentence without choking on his own fucking tongue, or make his limbs behave like normal. Why was he so terrible at being a person all of a sudden? Oh wait, Frank said something that sounded like a question. He blinked, and zoned back in.

“Huh? Sorry.” He winced.

Frank, bless him, just smiled and repeated, “Did you want a drink? Since you probably didn’t come just to ask about my self-mutilation.”

Coffee, yes, semblance of normalcy he could cling to. He ordered a latte with soy milk at Frank’s insistence - “The dairy industry is total bullshit, Gerard, cows don’t deserve to be treated like that,” he’d told him in earnest and Gerard had nodded and tried not to make his heart eyes too obvious - and while Frank busied himself at the espresso machine, Gerard made camp in his usual spot. The rain was coming down steadily now. It provided a soothing white noise backdrop for Gerard’s runaway fantasy about dragging Frank out into the middle of it and kissing him in the street. He and Frank were the only two in the shop, which was better and worse; better because he had a monopoly on Frank’s attention, and worse for the exact same reason. The place felt smaller, somehow, when it was empty. Gerard liked it. A full mug with a delicate rosetta patterned over the top of the foam snuck over the countertop while he fished his markers out of his bag.

“What!” he exclaimed, and looked up at Frank, who had a shy little smile curling at the corners of his mouth. “That’s adorable, where’d you learn to do that?”

Frank shrugged, pushing his steaming pitcher down onto the rinse pad. “It’s not hard. Just gotta practice.” He pulled a face Gerard wasn’t sure how to place, and continued, “I’ve worked here on and off since I was in high school. You spend a lot of time by yourself, clearly,” he jerked his chin toward the empty tables, “and you get bored, or at least I do. So I pass the time working on my pours.”

That answered the question of how Frank was so natural behind the bar. Gerard uncapped his favorite black marker. “What do you do when you’re not here?” Frank looked a little past college-age to him, but he might've been a non-traditional student or something.

“Oh, you know. A little bit of this, some of that.” Frank looked out at something Gerard couldn’t see with a cryptic smile. “Traveling, mainly.”

“That’s awesome,” said Gerard, trying not to sound jealous. “Like, internationally, or…?”

“Sometimes. I’ve been all over. But I always end up back here.” Frank wiped down the espresso machine, and then tossed the rag back into the red bucket on the floor and hopped up to sit on the metal counter than ran underneath the pine top. “Never at the time I want to be, though.”

Gerard became suddenly aware of the fact that Frank was sitting less than two feet away, and that Gerard’s sketchbook was open to the page filled with drawings of Frank done before they’d been introduced, and he was seized by a mortal panic as Frank glanced over and his gaze caught on the page. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no - 

“Hey, is that…is that _me?_”

God, kill him now. Gerard couldn’t bring himself to look up; his eyes were trained on the jinx removal tattoo study. His cheeks burned with embarrassment. Why did he do that, why did he go back to those sketches, why didn’t he just get a fresh fucking page, why was he the dumbest person alive on the planet?

“That is so cool!”

It was like a record scratch in his brain. He jerked his head up and stared at Frank in confusion - cool? What? Was Frank talking about the sketches? “…Cool?” he said at last, and his voice came out significantly more strangled than planned. He cleared his throat. “I mean, they’re just sketches. Um. I’m sorry I didn’t ask you before I - “

To his dismay, Frank grabbed his sketchbook and held it closer to his face. He didn’t seem creeped out; if anything, he looked kind of impressed. It made Gerard feel very warm all of a sudden. Maybe that was why he didn’t have an impulse to stand up and rip the book out of Frank’s hands and then run away, never to be seen or heard from again. His heart stuttered when Frank slowly traced over the tattoo with his fingertips.

“No one’s ever drawn me before,” he said, wonder in his voice, and Gerard swallowed hard. “At least that I’ve gotten to see. Don’t sell yourself short, man, this is really good. I kinda look like a ghost,” he remarked, smiling. “Frankie the friendly ghost.”

“Haunts your local coffee shop and dumps all the dairy in the trash,” said Gerard before he could stop himself. Frank laughed, to his relief, and nodded.

“Fuck yeah. Vegan alternatives only.” He started to thumb over the page edges, but stopped, and cut a glance at Gerard. “Sorry, it’s rude to look through other people’s art, isn’t it? Shit. I’m an asshole, here, take this.” He held out the book. Gerard almost took it, too, but what the hell, he was a little bit high on praise and Frank liked vampires anyway.

“You can look, it’s cool,” he told Frank, and that was something he had never said to anyone other than Mikey and, like, the guy who audited his portfolio to get into SVA. Frank didn’t seem to notice this monumental first in Gerard’s life, though, just started eagerly flipping through what was basically Gerard’s visual journal. Gerard didn’t feel as stressed out about this as he maybe should have. Every now and again Frank would pause and point out the ones he really liked - stuff that referenced the Misfits and all things vampire, ghost, skeleton, or zombie related seemed to be the biggest hits (“That is fucking rad,” he said of Bowie-as-Lestat, which made Gerard dizzy with pride) - but he kept coming back to the sketches of himself, peeking at them before returning to the other pages. When he eventually handed the book back to Gerard, it was open to that one.

“Dude, seriously, that stuff is awesome,” he was saying, and Gerard was barely listening, marveling instead at how animated Frank’s hands were and the chipped black fingernail polish he wore and the way his lips curved as he spoke. “That’s the kind of shit I’d get tattooed, if I had any skin left. And you drew me! And my tattoo, that probably doesn’t exist anymore.” He looked so sad about this for a moment that Gerard didn’t even think about what he did next. 

“Here,” he said, and ripped the page off before offering it to Frank. “Keep it.”

The look of sheer delight on Frank’s face was enough to erase any second thoughts about giving it to him. He reached for it, but hesitated before grabbing it. “Are you sure? You don’t have to, just because it’s of me - “

“Frank, the only person in the world who would appreciate it is you. Consider it a mea culpa for not asking before I drew it.”

Frank beamed at him with that thousand-watt smile, and yeah, Gerard had never actually fallen in love with someone in less than two days before but there was a first time for everything and he could only pray it didn’t ooze out of his stupid face as Frank carefully folded up the page and stuck it into his pocket. He started to ask Gerard something, maybe about his art, or vampires, or whether Gerard was free next weekend to get a drink or something (that last one was a bit fanciful conjecture but hey, Gerard could dream) - but just then, the shop door chimed open and two girls hurried in from the rain outside. Frank and Gerard shared a look, and then Frank called out a greeting to them, jumped down off the counter and headed over to the register.

“Try the soy milk,” he said when they tried to order skim. “Way better for the cows.” He glanced over at Gerard and winked. Gerard had to bite his tongue to keep from sighing out loud.

Over the next hour, more and more people ducked in and out of the shop, leaving Gerard only a few minutes here and there to talk to Frank until he got pulled away again to make someone else a drink. Gerard gave up on any more really meaningful conversation after twenty minutes or so, and settled for watching Frank work. At some point he got a great idea for a drawing, featuring Frank in a Sweeney Todd-esque pose holding a straight razor to his throat, and started sketching it out. The basic idea was pretty much done by the time the shop finally emptied out again, and Gerard started packing his stuff up as Frank approached his side of the bar with a rag in hand.

“Are you leaving me?” he said, taking Gerard’s empty mug and setting it on the lower counter. 

“Gotta go check on my brother. It’s his birthday on Monday and he’s celebrating all weekend, so I’m in charge of carrying him through the hangovers to get him to the next night’s party.” Gerard pulled his bag over his head. “Sort of ‘Get Me to the Church on Time,’ but instead of becoming respectable it’s just more debauchery.”

Frank nodded. “Debauchery is key for birthdays. Happy early birthday to your brother.”

Gerard smiled. “I’ll tell him.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and did a nervous back-and-forth shuffle - he desperately wanted to ask Frank when he was working, more importantly when he was free, and could do something with Gerard like go browse records or comic books or get married, whatever - but he didn’t know how to ask. To say he was out of practice was an understatement. In fact he’d done the asking out all of twice and with his most recent sort-of relationship he hadn’t so much asked Kat as he’d been told to meet her at Big Daddy’s so he wasn’t sure if that even counted. “Listen, um,” he began, and Frank looked up at him from what he was cleaning on the bar, and all of a sudden Gerard’s nerve was shot. He stood there with his mouth open for an interminable second, stuck, and then at last finished with, “Thanks for, for being so cool. And for the latte.”

Frank propped his elbows up on the edge of the counter, and rested his chin on top of his knuckles. It was a cute pose, and Gerard’s fingers itched to draw it. “My pleasure.” He shot him a smile. “You, Gerard, are rad. It was an honor to be drawn by you.”

Like a literal teenage girl, Gerard blushed and hid a shy smile in his shoulder. God. He was twenty-four, not sixteen. “I hope your tattoo heals okay.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” There was an odd tone to the way he said it that Gerard couldn’t place. The weirdness went away fast, though, and Frank tossed his rag over his shoulder. “You’ll be here later this week?” Gerard nodded. “Cool. I’ll see you around, then. Don’t forget to tell your brother happy birthday from me.”

Gerard waved on his way out the door. “I won’t. See you later.” He lingered in the doorway for a second, watching Frank stack dishes with a tiny smile on his lips, and then he took off for his car.

* * *

Frank waited until the door closed, counted to ten in his head, and then quickly set down the cups he was holding and dashed to the sink. Thank Christ, the book was clean. This was the only page that had anything chronologically incriminating on it; now Gerard could draw him to his heart’s content and as long as that damn tattoo didn’t show up anywhere else, he’d be fine. He pulled the drawing Gerard had given him out of his pocket. It really was cool. Frank was sorry to see it go, but needs must. 

Holding the page out at arm’s length between finger and thumb in the sink, Frank reached into his back pocket for his Bic lighter, and flicked it on. He held the flame to the furthest corner of the paper until it caught, and let it burn almost all the way up to his fingertips before he dropped it. It spluttered next to the drain, and then burned itself out. Frank turned the tap on to wash the ashes away. 

Only three more days. Frank touched the bandage on his neck, and took a deep breath. The shop door jingled open.


	3. Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank was easily the most interesting person Gerard had met all year. People not wanting to hang out with Frank didn’t make any sense. If anything, _Gerard_ should have been the one to make that statement.

Mikey stayed in bed until almost six o’clock that night. It gave Gerard plenty of time to keep working on his latest Frank drawing - it was all but finished when Mikey got up and went to take a shower before the next round of drinking. It just needed color. Gerard was staring at his vast marker horde and agonizing over which shade of green he needed to start coloring Frank’s eyes when Mikey poked his head back into the room. “What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

Gerard gestured to his desk, littered with pens. “This. None of these greens are right,” he griped, and picked up two markers to compare them more closely under the lamplight.

“Not anymore. Show tonight in Hoboken. You’re coming with me.” Mikey disappeared again, and that was that. Gerard took another long look at his markers, and sighed, dropping them back into the pile. He supposed going out again wouldn’t be so terrible for him. And actually, he hadn’t been to a show in months, he’d been so consumed with Breakfast Monkey and all. There might be bands playing that hadn’t existed the last time he went. He pushed himself away from the desk and went to dig through the mountain of dubiously clean laundry looming in the corner for something to wear.

By the time Mikey came back to collect him, Gerard was dressed and sitting cross-legged in front of his full length mirror, squinting at his reflection with an eyeliner pencil in hand. “Thicker or thinner?” he asked Mikey when he sat down next to him. Mikey peered into his face.

“Thicker,” he said after a moment’s deliberation. Gerard nodded and went to work. “Ray Toro’s new band might be playing.”

“Oh yeah?” Damn, he hadn’t talked to Ray in months. The longer he thought about it, the more it was dawning on him how much of a hermit he’d become to prepare for his pitch. He got frustrated all over again thinking about how hard he’d worked, for nothing, and it distracted him enough that he managed to poke himself in the eye with the pencil. He hissed, and dropped it.

Mikey handed him a tissue from somewhere. “Apparently he’s playing drums.”

“_What?_” Gerard squawked, dabbing under his eye. He looked at Mikey in disbelief. “Virtuoso metal guitarist Ray fuckin’ Toro is playing _drums?_ That’s like a violation of the laws of the universe!”

“For real,” Mikey agreed. He glanced thoughtfully at Gerard in the mirror. “You should do that thing where you, like,” he pulled down his lower eyelid and mimed drawing on it. “It looks cool.”

Gerard picked up the eyeliner pencil again. “I wish I knew where that red eyeshadow went, I spent like twenty minutes looking for it. I had this whole look in my head.” He did the tightlining Mikey suggested, agreed that it looked cool, and once he’d done the other eye to his satisfaction he got up and dug around for his leather jacket, last seen somewhere in the vicinity of…where the fuck was it? He heard a rustling sound, looked up, and Mikey was holding it out to him. “Do you know where all my stuff is?”

Mikey shrugged. “I know _you._” He stuck his hands into his hoodie pockets while Gerard gave himself a quick once-over in the mirror. “You should have Mom dye your hair again.”

“Yeah.” The black was getting kind of faded. He roughed it up in the back and examined the result. Maybe he should start growing it out again, too; he’d cut it shorter when he started at Cartoon Network, but it didn’t do him many favors. “Am I driving?”

“Duh. It’s my birthday, I’m not doing shit,” said Mikey, and started up the stairs. Gerard rolled his eyes. He grabbed his keys off the desk and spent a split second lingering over the drawing before switching off the lamp and following Mikey. He also snagged a scarf thrown over the handrail and twined it around his neck. Mikey was waiting for him by the front door, and nodded in approval at the new addition.

Parking in Hoboken sucked no matter where you went, so Gerard’s usual strategy was to find a supermarket within walking distance with enough spots that one wouldn’t be missed, park there, and buy beer so he could claim reasonable doubt as a customer. Mikey was used to this; instead of telling Gerard where they were actually going, he gave him the nearest ShopRite and jumped out as soon as Gerard pulled the brake. “Gonna get a tall boy. You want?”

“Uh, yeah, hang on.” He fished his wallet out of his jeans and peeled off a couple bucks. Technically speaking it should’ve been him getting the beer, but Mikey’s fake ID hadn’t let them down yet and well, what the fuck, he was gonna be twenty-one in two days, whatever. “Steel Reserve if they’ve got it. Literally anything other than Natty Ice is fine, though.”

Mikey walked off, and Gerard headed across the parking lot to the QuickChek for cigarettes, because theirs were cheaper. It was a lot less sticky out now that the rain had passed. All that was left now was puddles in the uneven asphalt and a metallic sort of smell to the air. The jingle of the door pulling open and weird harsh light from the buzzing strips overhead greeted Gerard like an old friend as he walked in and headed straight for the coffee counter. As he was two inches from being a literal creature of the night, he haunted a lot of convenience stores, and drank a lot of their coffee. QuickChek’s tasted like tar but woke you up like a motherfucker. He dumped close to a quarter of a cup of sugar into one of the big cups and then filled it almost to the brim, leaving just enough room to slosh the two together and snap a lid on. As he wandered over to the register, he picked up on a familiar voice talking to the cashier.

“…don’t even ask, man, there’s a fuckin’ Darwin Award in the pipeline for it, I’m sure - “

“Frank?” said Gerard, and Frank turned, and his whole face lit up like Christmas. Gerard’s heart skipped a beat.

“Gerard! Holy shit, fancy seeing you here,” he said, collecting the Camels he’d been buying off the counter. He looked different, somehow, out in the world instead of in the shop. More normal, maybe? He had on a jean jacket that was beat to shit and had what looked like paint splatters on one sleeve - buttons and patches for bands both familiar and unfamiliar to Gerard decorated the collar and breast pockets. Frank tucked his cigarettes into one of these and stuck his hands into the waist pockets with that big, heart-melting smile. “I love the eyeliner. Very Robert Smith.”

Oh. He blushed, hard, and pretended to take a sip of coffee to avoid saying anything too stupid right away. “Thanks! It’s been sort of an ongoing experiment. Um, what brings you here? Other than the, uh, obvious,” and so much for not saying anything stupid. Oh well. Gerard took a real sip and promptly scalded the shit out of his tongue. “Ow, motherfucker.”

Frank ignored this because he was a great fucking dude and stepped out of the way so Gerard could put his cup down and start paying for it. “My apartment’s not far from here. Needed smokes, thought I could use a walk since I was just killing time. I like going out after it rains. Makes everything look kind of noir and cool, you know?” Gerard did know. That Frank also felt that way about it only added to the list of Reasons Gerard Was Now Ruined For All Other Relationships Except Potentially This One. He asked for a pack of Marlboros, and grabbed a fresh lighter for good measure. “Do you live around here?” Frank asked him.

“Belleville, actually.” He shoved his change into his pocket, picked up his coffee and followed Frank out the door. “We’re seeing a show. We as in me and my brother. I was not actually given a choice in the matter but I guess our friend’s band is playing, and it wasn’t like I was doing anything else? So. Here I am. Ta-da!” Much to his own embarrassment, he made jazz hands at the end, and from the tiny captain’s chair way up behind his eyeballs the last part of him that wasn’t in total thrall to Frank screamed at the rest of him that he was an idiot. He unwrapped and packed his smokes, shook one out and lit it.

“Nice! Man, I haven’t been to a show in forever,” Frank said wistfully. He was grabbing out his own pack; Gerard reached over to give him a light, and when Frank leaned into the flame with a cigarette already between his lips he got a shivery feeling all the way up his arm. “Where is he?”

Gerard, transfixed on the cherry light glinting off of Frank’s lip ring, only went “Hmm?” at first, and then came back to himself and said, “Oh, Mikey! He’s getting beer. Over there.” He pointed across the parking lot, where he thought he saw Mikey emerging from the supermarket with a bag. Then, abruptly, the first thing Frank said sank in, and Gerard sucked in a breath as it dawned on him that he’d been presented with an opportunity from the universe. Frank was here. Frank liked punk music. Frank, by his own admission, was not doing anything. “You got plans the rest of the night?”

Frank blew out a stream of bluish smoke and shook his head. “They all involve my ass and sitting on it.”

“Wanna come with us?” Frank’s head jerked up. He looked surprised. Gerard wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, so he just kept talking. “I’m pretty sure it’s a tickets at the door kind of thing, um, although I don’t actually know where we’re going. I assume a bar. Our friends aren’t that famous.” He gave a nervous laugh, flicked his cigarette and tried not to look too hopeful. They’d only officially known each other for a couple of hours, he reminded himself. He still didn’t know if Frank was single; shit, Frank might not even be into guys, Gerard realized with a start. How fucking presumptuous was that? What if he had a girlfriend, or, oh God - he snuck a peek at Frank’s left hand. Okay, he wasn’t wearing a ring. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t straight. Wait, why was he being so weird about this? He hadn’t asked him on a _date_. But Frank hadn’t said anything either way. In fact, Frank hadn’t said anything at all.

“No pressure,” Gerard said, suddenly anxious. “Um. Don’t feel bad if you’d rather just sit on your ass. I just thought, if you wanted to get out of the house, you’re totally welcome to come with.”

Frank was staring determinedly into the middle distance, which was not a good sign. Gerard flailed in his head. Fuck, he was so _stupid_, of course Frank didn’t want to come, he probably thought Gerard was fucking _stalking _him, between drawing him at work and running into him in a convenience store twenty minutes from Gerard’s house. It was a good thing it was dark, because Gerard was flushed all to hell and humiliated. “Uh. I’m - I’m sorry. Forget it.” He cleared his throat, miserable, and turned to start toward his car and wait for Mikey there before he died of shame.

“Hey, wait, hang on,” Frank called, and snagged Gerard’s shoulder. Gerard spun around. Frank was frowning, but it didn’t seem like it was in disgust - he met Gerard’s eye, and Gerard saw how sad Frank looked, all of a sudden. It stopped Gerard’s apprehension cold. “It’s not anything you did. Promise. It’s just, um,” and he did that high-pitched giggle that made Gerard Feel Things, “it’s been a really, _really_ fuckin’ long time since anyone wanted to hang out with me? Like. Calendar years.”

Gerard could only blink at him, boggled. Frank was easily the most interesting person Gerard had met all year. People not wanting to hang out with Frank didn’t make any sense. If anything, _Gerard_ should have been the one to make that statement. Also, Frank’s hand was still on his shoulder. It was making it hard to come up with a response that wasn’t just a noise of pure shock.

“Did you know Steel Reserve is _two fucking dollars_ now? The guy gave me my total and I almost had a goddamn panic attack. Oh,” and Gerard sort of jerked to look at Mikey, who’d walked up behind him and was now stopped in his tracks, glancing between him and Frank with an uncertain expression. Frank’s hand fell away from Gerard’s shoulder as he took a step back, and Gerard felt a flash of guilt for some reason. “Sorry, am I interrupting?”

He looked at Gerard and made the eyebrows that meant _do you need me to go away right this instant or do you need help,_ and Gerard pressed his lips together in the way that answered _neither, it’s fine, _and Mikey gave an imperceptible nod and jerked his chin at Frank.

“Sup, I’m Mikey. His brother,” he said as he pulled a can out of the grocery bag.

Frank perked up almost instantly. “Oh! Yeah, okay, I definitely see the resemblance. Hi! I’m Frank. Gerard told me about you.” He smiled. “Happy almost birthday.”

Gerard thought Mikey’s eyes were going to pop out of his head, which was sort of hilarious to watch, because Mikey was so not demonstrative and it looked like it was hurting him a little. “Thanks,” he managed, glanced back at Gerard in a way that clearly said _when the fuck did you make a friend I don’t already know_, and handed the bag to him.

“Frank works at this coffee shop near the ferry terminal, uhh…” Gerard trailed off when he realized he didn’t actually know the name of the place.

“Keen Bean,” Frank supplied. Gerard beamed at him.

“Oh, cool,” said Mikey, cracking open his beer. “Are you seeing Six Hell Slaughter? That’s where we’re going. A friend of ours is opening.”

Gerard suddenly felt nervous all over again. Frank still hadn’t said yes or no, and if he did say no, Mikey would know something was up, and Gerard absolutely did not want to have to talk about it later or he would throw himself off a fucking building. He pretended to be very interested in the view of the half-empty parking lot and took a drag off his cigarette.

“Yeah, Gerard was just telling me about it. I wasn’t planning on it, but if you guys don’t mind, I’d be down to tag along.”

Gerard choked on smoke, spluttering like a bitch, and Mikey gave him a weird look, but he didn’t care. Frank was going! Frank wanted to hang out! With him! And also with Mikey, but everyone wanted to hang out with Mikey, he sort of had that effect on people. “Not at all!” he gasped out between coughs. Frank was grinning at him from behind his cigarette, which was not making it easier to breathe, damn him. Gerard looked at Mikey and made a _help me_ face.

“Don’t think Toro would say no to more bodies in the room,” said Mikey, and thumped Gerard soundly between his shoulder blades. “We should get going, though, doors are in half an hour and I wanna be drunk before it starts.”

* * *

It turned out they were going to Shot in the Dark, which was a pretty cool bar but expensive as all fuck, so after they got their entry hand stamps from the surly girl at the door, they ducked across the street to grab earplugs and a fifth of whiskey. Since Gerard was driving, he stuck to the Steel Reserve, and watched Frank and Mikey get steadily wasted together against the wall in the smoking alley next to the bar with increasing amusement. The two of them got on like a house on fire; Gerard was pleased. If Mikey could get along with Frank, then the three of them could hang out, which would make it a billion times easier on Gerard if by some miracle he and Frank started dating (_oh please, _Gerard found himself thinking, when Frank lit up with excitement about something Mikey mentioned, _please let there be some miracle_). Mikey and Kat hadn’t liked each other at all, and couldn’t spend ten minutes near each other without bickering, and Gerard didn’t want to subject himself to that ever again. Currently, Mikey and Frank were arguing about horror movies.

“No!” Mikey was saying, gesticulating with the nearing-empty bottle of whiskey. A high color, just barely visible under the sodium orange streetlights, bloomed in his cheeks. “_El ataúd del vampiro_ was just a shitty sequel piggybacking on _El vampiro_’s success. It was garbage! What kind of fucking vampire movie is set in a wax museum?”

“He turns into a bat! And there’s that whole stalking-hot-girl-through-city sequence, which is totally menacing and awesome. Gerard, back me up,” Frank demanded, turning to Gerard, who just hid a smile and drank more beer. “Ugh, fine, traitor. I’m telling you, _El ataúd_ is a perfectly good B-horror vampire movie all on its own. Like, okay. So what if it’s not as, fuckin’, moody or whatever as the first one?”

Mikey goggled at him. “That’s the point!” he shrilled. “That’s the whole fucking point of vampire movies, is the atmosphere of the fucker! It’s like zombie movies, right, cause there’s nowhere you can get a jump scare, so you gotta rely on mood to freak the audience out. If there’s no creepy atmosphere, it’s just a weird guy with pointy canines and a cape running around chasing and biting chicks! Through a _fucking wax fucking museum_!”

Frank plucked the whiskey out of Mikey’s hand and downed a large mouthful of it. “You’re expecting way too much out of it, dude! Like I said, it’s a B-movie horror, and it’s in a language I can’t even fuckin’ understand. It’s cheesy as fuck. It’s not supposed to be, like, arthouse cinema. There are two things I give a shit about while watching campy horror: one,” and he started counting off on his fingers, “can I eat popcorn to it, and two, does it get better the more drunk I am? That’s all that matters!”

“Oh my God,” Mikey moaned, and covered his face with both hands. “We have so much re-education we gotta do.” 

Frank bumped Gerard with his shoulder, or maybe he just fell into him, and slurred a little as he said, “You have an opinion in all this? You’ve gotta have seen ‘em at least as many times as Mikey McWrongster here.”

Gerard glanced between the two of them, shrugged, and went, “Germán Robles was one hot fuckin’ vampire.”

“_So_ hot,” Mikey and Frank agreed in unison, and while Mikey took the whiskey back from Frank and took a swig, Frank did a double take at Gerard, who tried to look casual and fine while his heart stuttered painfully in his chest. Oh shit. Two things just happened that Gerard was too sober to cope with: he’d outed himself to Frank, and Frank outed himself to him back, and now that was floating around in the open like an elephant full of helium. Had Frank meant to do that? Had _he_? Suddenly he found himself unable to meet Frank’s eyes, and he chugged the rest of the can instead, and crushed it against the wall. “But,” said Frank, slowly, still looking at Gerard, and Gerard steeled himself for whatever was coming next, “was he hotter than Christopher Lee in _Horror of Dracula?”_

Mikey snorted. “Uh, clearly. Robles looked like a goth Romantic aristocrat and Christopher Lee looked like he hadn’t slept in a million years and also he was fucking bleeding from the eyes. Definite boner killer.”

Gerard wasn’t listening. He was too busy staring at Frank, who was staring back at him with his chin raised and a tiny, dare-you smile on his lips. That had been deliberate. That was confirmation. Gerard felt a blush that had nothing to do with alcohol spreading across his face.

“Hello? Ground control to Major Tom,” Mikey’s voice was saying, and he waved his hand in front of Gerard’s face. “Come on. Doors. I don’t want to get stuck on the wall.” He pushed Gerard forward.

They surged in with the rest of the crowd and ended up squashed into the middle on stage right. Gerard honestly would have preferred to be on the wall, but if he and Mikey separated now it would take him all night to find him again. On Gerard’s left, Mikey produced the earplugs from 7-11 and passed them down to both of them. On his right, Frank was practically vibrating with excitement, craning his neck to see the stage and jostling good-naturedly with the people pressing in around them. “Do you know anything about these bands?” he yelled to Gerard over the noise. “Like, are they good?”

“I have no idea,” Gerard yelled back. “But they’ve got Ray playing drums, which is so fucking beyond stupid that I’m not expecting much.”

“Guess we’ll find out!” Frank grinned at him, and as the band started trickling onto the stage and grabbing instruments, Gerard felt a hand slip into and entwine with his. He looked down in surprise, found Frank attached to the other hand, and the surprise turned to abject shock. “Don’t want you getting lost,” Frank shouted, and squeezed. Gerard was so floored that he completely forgot to look for Ray behind the drum kit, and he only registered that they’d started playing when the first screech of the PA system rang in his ears and the room exploded into movement.

They weren’t…good, exactly, but they were really, really loud, which was pretty much the same thing to this crowd, Gerard figured. He couldn’t hear their singer well enough to decide if he was decent; their guitarist was fine but not nearly as good as Ray. All around him, people were shoving and bumping around, not quite a mosh pit but they’d get there before the next set. Frank kept holding his hand through it all. Every now and again Gerard would squeeze just to assure himself that it was really happening, and Frank would squeeze back while bouncing along to the music, and Gerard would grin crazily to himself and brush Mikey’s shoulder.

Some miracle, indeed.

They played a shorter set than Gerard expected. Maybe fifteen minutes went by, and then the noise stopped and the singer announced the next band. Gerard caught a glimpse of Ray when he stood up to start breaking stuff down, and he smacked Mikey to get his attention. They yelled Ray’s name across the room, and when that didn’t work they tried waving, but the overall din was too much and they gave up. “There’s a lot of people here,” Mikey noted, looking around. “Way more than I thought there was gonna be.”

Frank let go of Gerard’s hand then, and Gerard turned to look at him with what he was embarrassed to admit was alarm. Frank saw this, and leaned up to talk close to Gerard’s ear. “Gotta take a piss. Don’t worry, I’ll find you after.” Gerard relaxed, nodded, and also sort of rolled his eyes at himself because duh, they’d been drinking. Frank started weaving through the mob, and Gerard turned back to Mikey, who in the two seconds Gerard hadn’t been paying attention to him had scored a spliff from somewhere and was sharing it with the girl standing on his other side.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” he asked. Mikey just shrugged, and offered it to him. Gerard jingled his car keys meaningfully at him with his eyebrows raised. “That’s not a conversation I wanna have with Mom later. ‘Why is Mikey dead two days before his birthday?’” he falsettoed in an impression of her, and continued in his normal voice, “‘Oh, well, you see, Mom, there was weed at the concert and I just couldn’t help myself even though I knew I was driving, and wouldn’t you know it, I crashed my gosh darn car into a light pole, whoops, sorry Mom - ‘“

Mikey shoved at him. “Fine. Where’s Frank?”

“Peeing.” He stuck his hands into his jacket pockets and pretended he wasn’t looking around the room for him. On stage, Ray’s band - what were they called? Gerard thought it might have been a dick joke - packed gear into suitcases and cardboard boxes while guys from Six Hell Slaughter unloaded their stuff around them. Gerard didn’t actually know any of them, but he thought the guitar player with the green hair looked kind of familiar. Fuck, he was so out of the loop. Fucking Cartoon Network and its fucking bullshit. Frank hadn’t come back from the bathroom when they finished loading in, or when they tuned up. Gerard got worried when it seemed like they were gonna start and there was still no sign of him. Even Mikey took notice after the first song came and went and Frank was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s been gone for like twenty minutes, what gives?” he shouted to Gerard, who threw up his hands.

“I don’t know, maybe he went for a smoke and they wouldn’t let him back in?” He couldn’t fucking _see_ through the masses of people throwing themselves at each other, the whole room seethed and heaved with moving bodies but Gerard couldn’t make out Frank’s shape among any of them. Did he get lost? Did he leave without saying anything? What if he realized he didn’t actually like Gerard all that much, or met someone outside, or - His train of thought was interrupted by someone slamming into the back of him, and Gerard staggered forward, catching himself just before he tumbled all the way to the ground. Fuck this. He needed to get out of here, there was no way he could even pretend to start looking for Frank with all these people in the way. He grabbed ahold of Mikey. “I’m gonna look for him outside,” he yelled next to his ear, and Mikey nodded. Gerard fought his way to the front door, ducking around flying limbs the whole way, and when he finally emerged onto the sidewalk in front of the bar the cool night air and relative quiet of the street rushed up to greet him. He took a deep breath through his nose, yanked out the earplugs, and started asking the clusters of strangers milling around with cigarettes and drinks if they’d seen Frank anywhere. 

He was still at it when Six Hell Slaughter finished their set. No one had seen him, no one knew who he was talking about, even, and when Mikey eventually found him in the smoking alley again he was halfway through his third anxiety-driven cigarette. “He just fucking vanished,” he said to Mikey, sucking down smoke like a fiend and shoving his hands through his hair, making it stick up a million different directions. He probably looked insane. It didn’t matter. “The last time anyone saw him was when he got here. One guy thought he might have seen him in the hallway going to the bathroom but he didn’t know for sure. Fuck,” he said suddenly, and tipped his head back against the wall. “Mikey, what if he just left?”

Mikey pushed up his glasses, looking unhappy. “He wasn’t in the bathroom, either. I went and looked while they were playing. Dude, I think he bailed.”

Gerard pressed a hand over his face, feeling all the places between his fingers where Frank’s had been for a brief, amazing moment, and fought the urge to start crying right there. Frank was gone. He was gone, and Gerard didn’t even know what he did to make him leave, and God, he was so fucking _stupid_. His breath hitched in his throat, and he felt Mikey place a careful hand on his elbow.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said to him, quietly. “Come on.”

* * *

Forty-five minutes ago, Frank hummed on his way to the bathroom, feeling drunk on both alcohol and life. Sure, the band sort of sucked, but at least he was here to see one at all. He missed going to shows - missed being around people, talking to them, sharing space, feeling like he belonged somewhere. This particular scene was before Frank’s time by about fifteen years, but the type of person who went to New Jersey punk shows was basically the same in 2001 as they were in 2016. They just looked different. Frank felt as much at home here as he did at the shows in his own timeline. Plus, Gerard and Mikey were awesome. He hadn’t known very much about either of them before coming on this repair - well, he did know something about Gerard, and he winced remembering _that _part - and the fact that they were genuinely cool made him feel better about having to be here. 

Gerard was a sweetheart, he thought, leaning hard into the wall next to the bathroom door. And dammit, he was cute like this, all wide-eyed and nerdy and awkward. Frank hadn’t known he’d started wearing eyeliner before the band. It worked, though. He was pretty hot. And Frank liked him a lot. If it weren’t for Jamia…

That thought sobered him up some. Well. If it weren’t for Jamia, he wouldn’t be here at all. He shook his head, trying to clear it but mostly succeeding in making it spin. Without looking up, he pushed open the bathroom door with his shoulder.

Instantly he knew something was amiss. The room was empty and reeked of that burnt fuse smell Frank recognized as accompanying a reset watch. He spun around, heart in his throat, and ran straight into black robes and a featureless black mask.

“Shoulda seen this coming, Frank,” said the figure, and punched Frank in the gut. All the air whooshed out of his lungs at once. Frank doubled over with a gasp. They stepped closer; a hand closed around Frank’s jacket collar and held tight. Frank tried to throw them off, but their knee came up and slammed into his cheek. Pain bloomed bright and crackly across his vision. He cried out despite himself. “Don’t get all squirrelly on me now. You know the rules.”

“Please,” Frank wheezed. He held up his hands as best he could. Fuck, he wasn’t sober enough to defend himself, here. “Please, I was just - “

“We know what you did.” They got him in the mouth this time. Frank tasted blood filling the space in between his bottom teeth and lip. “Let’s see, why don’t we wrap this up six hundred years ago?”

No no no, he couldn’t leave now, not without telling Gerard. Gerard would think he’d ditched him. Frank spat onto the bathroom floor, and tried to tell the figure, “I’m in the middle of something, it’s important,” but all he got out was another cry of pain when they yanked him up and slammed him headfirst into the tiled wall. They kept him pinned there with one hand against his throat. The other pulled a reset watch out of their robes - the tarnished brass had a faint green tint to it in the dim fluorescent light, the glass scratched and hazy. Frank tried to shake his head, but they just pressed tighter, and spun the dials with their thumb. 

“It could be worse, you know,” they said, and pulled up the crown. “This is just pain.”

Frank watched them start to push back down on it again, and shut his eyes to brace for the horrible floor-falling-away sensation that always came with a jump in spacetime. When he opened them again, he and the figure were in a darkened field ringed by maple trees and wild anemone, and his nose was filled with an even stronger version of the burnt fuse smell, making his eyes water and his brain feel like it was prickling. He knew, without needing to ask, that they were in the exact same physical spot they’d been. The figure threw him down onto his knees.

“Frank Iero,” said the figure, and Frank raised his chin, lips curled into a scowl. The figure shook their head in disappointment. “Frank, you dumb motherfucker. How hard is it to just do what you’re told?”

He laughed, hard and bitter and full of blood. “When have I _ever_ done that?”

They lashed out, and all Frank knew for a long time after that was hurt.


	4. Nostalgia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh no, are you not supposed to talk about your parents’ divorce on dates? No wonder no one calls me back.”

Frank came to facedown on a tiled floor. For several minutes, that was all he cared about. He was alive and in a time where tiled floors existed, i.e. not pre-colonial New Jersey, and that beat almost all of the alternatives. He did feel like hamburger meat after losing a fight with a blender. Beacons of pain pulsed at him from all over his body; the worst was his head. Wherever he was, it was too bright for the aching cacophony happening behind his eyes, almost sickeningly so. Frank screwed his eyes shut again, and took a labored breath through his nose. Bathroom, he guessed, given the faint smell of bleach. Easy to clean if he was bleeding all over it. He slowly curled up on the side that hurt the least with a groan.

This was far from the first time They’d seen fit to sic one of Their goons on Frank to voice Their displeasure with something he did. It was the first time They had spirited him away in the middle of a repair to beat the shit out of him, though. Usually They waited till the end and took out Their frustrations on him then. Maybe They were trying to get Their money’s worth out of him as an unofficial punching bag before he left Their sorry asses behind.

God, he could not wait to get this repair over with. Gerard was pretty, but he wanted to go home.

Oh, fuck. Gerard. Frank’s head throbbed at the thought of him. He didn’t deserve to get ditched like that, especially after he’d been nice enough to invite Frank out in the first place, and even though it wasn’t entirely Frank’s fault he’d left he still felt like a dick. Apologizing to him was going to be a task. Most likely it would involve a phone book. Holy shit, a phone book. Frank giggled to himself, wincing when it made his head shoot tiny lightning bolts all the way down to his teeth.

Okay, time to get up. He needed painkillers and ice and to clean off his face before he left wherever he was. Had They been nice enough to dump him back in the same spot? Probably not. Nice was not in Their vocabulary. Frank inched himself up on his haunches, ignoring the way all of his cells screamed at him for it, and looked around. Bathroom yes; not the bar or his own. Graffiti carved into the mirror suggested a public one. He glanced down at the floor. Only a little blood, which was good. He liked to avoid hospitals during repairs if possible. They asked a lot of questions. With the aid of the sink, Frank pulled himself to standing and leaned on it with his eyes closed for a couple of seconds while he waited for the dizziness and fresh aching to subside. He opened them again and took stock of damage.

The bandage over his neck was gone, but They’d left the stitches intact. Big of Them. He’d have been fucked if They’d ripped them out. His lip was swollen on the un-pierced side. Blood had crusted over it and under his nostrils. A fresh cut adorned his left cheek and he had a faint black eye on the same side; it hurt when he prodded at it, but not too badly. He bared his teeth at himself. Still had the important ones, and he had all his molars when he checked those, too. Overall he felt worse than he looked, face-wise. That was pretty much standard operating procedure for Them, only because it was harder to keep a low profile when you were too obviously fucked up. The rest of him, however… He pulled off his jacket and dragged his shirt up to get a look at his torso. Ouch. Yeah, that looked pretty gross, he was definitely gonna be sore later. Frank gingerly pressed a hand over some of the mottled skin and grimaced. Nothing for it really, so he pulled his shirt back down and returned his attention to his face. There wasn’t much blood to clean up. He turned on the cold tap and grabbed a fistful of paper towels. It only took him a few passes and some minor complaining to get himself looking (for the most part) presentable.

He didn’t have a phone or a watch to check the time. He also didn’t know what day it was; definitely before Tuesday, or They wouldn’t have bothered to bring him back at all. Maybe They were gonna make him do the whole day over again to correct his mistake. He rolled his head on his neck and cracked it, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

“Oh, cool.” His lip protested as Frank grinned to himself, and he walked out into the lobby of the same QuickChek from the night before. Yeah, that was a message. Frank did so love Their sense of humor. He patted his pockets to make sure he still had his wallet, and spent a few moments grabbing Advil, coffee, a cup full of ice, and a Devils dishtowel before unloading it all at the counter for the apprehensive-looking checkout girl to ring up.

“You look like dog shit,” she told him.

“Yeah, it’s my dad’s side of the family.” He glanced out the windows. It was daylight, sunny, maybe mid-morning. “What day is it?”

She gave him a look. “Sunday. Were you sleeping in our bathroom?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Frank sniffed. “If it’s any consolation, I had a terrible time.” She gave him his change with a sneer, and he shot her a cold smirk before he gathered up his stuff and headed out the door. He used the newspaper box outside as a temporary shelf to get himself in order: he washed down three Advil with coffee, shook the ice out into the dishtowel and twisted it up into a ball before pressing it with a hiss to his lip.

Sunday. Okay, so They were letting him keep the night before. Which meant that in the grand scheme of things, going along to the punk show hadn’t even been that big of a deal. So why the fuck did Frank have to pay for it with his face? Frank kicked at the newspaper box in frustration. So what if he’d broken a rule? Their rules were bullshit anyway! If he was supposed to “avoid extraneous contact” with other people in the timeline, why did They let him work at a fucking coffee shop next to a fucking ferry terminal? Why did They make him drop into the timeline a few days before the event instead of a minute before? Was he expected to just sit around his apartment and wait until the day of the event? And then what, was he supposed to kidnap Gerard from his house and force him onto the boat without an explanation? “So,” he kicked the box again, “fucking,” kick, “stupid!” He kicked it three more times for good measure, and then threw himself back against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting against it. This was exactly the kind of enigmatic fuckery that made him so desperate to leave Them in the first place.

He allowed himself another angry sigh, and then dug into his breast pocket for a cigarette. Maybe he shouldn’t be smoking with his lip all fucked up, but whatever. He was in for a long day of tracking Gerard down the old-fashioned way and there were bound to be a million other Ways in the phone book he’d have to call before he found him and where did he even get current phonebooks, anyway?

“Oh my God, Frank, is that you?”

Frank didn’t mean to laugh. He really didn’t, but it was so absurd, he couldn’t help himself. Of course Gerard would be here to find him, again. God forbid either of them should get to have free will while They were around. Frank was used to it, but he did feel for Gerard, who probably thought he’d come here entirely of his own choosing. Maybe they both were stuck at this QuickChek now, in a Groundhog Day loop, doomed to run into each other ad infinitum and neither of them would make it to Tuesday.

At least he wouldn’t have to find a phonebook.

“Gerard, dude, we have got to stop meeting like this,” he called, still giggling. Gerard hovered anxiously at the edge of the curb, his car idling in the parking spot behind him. Last night’s eyeliner was smeared almost all the way up to his eyebrows and he didn’t look like he’d changed clothes at all - he even had on the same scarf. He seemed ready to bolt at any second, tension and concern writ large into every inch of him. Frank felt really bad for laughing, suddenly. “How’d you know where to find me?”

Gerard shifted back and forth. “I didn’t. I went out to get hair dye and while I was driving home I got this weird feeling like I should come back here. Um.” He was trying very hard not to stare at Frank’s latest injuries, Frank could tell. “Are - are you okay?”

“I’ve had worse.” Frank took the ice towel away from his lip. “Hey, listen, I’m sorry about last night - “

“What happened to your face?” Gerard blurted, apparently unable to contain his curiosity anymore.

Frank ran his tongue over his teeth. Okay, fine, he’d bought a little of this for himself by disappearing on the guy. If the roles were reversed Frank would definitely have worse words. An explanation was the least he could do. “I got jumped,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie for once. “At the bar last night. They took me out back, and then I woke up on the bathroom floor in there.” He reached back and knocked on the wall.“I don’t remember how I got from A to B.”

Gerard’s eyes bugged out in horror, and he lurched forward like he was going to rush over the sidewalk to Frank, but he stopped short. “Jesus fuck, you - that’s why you were gone! Frank, that looks bad. Maybe I should get you to a hospital - “

“Please no,” Frank said quickly, holding his hand out. “Thanks, but I seriously can’t afford another ER bill right now, and it looks worse than it is, trust me. I just gotta keep it on ice for awhile.”

Gerard shoved an agitated hand through his hair. He did that a lot, Frank noticed. Probably that’s why his hair stuck up like that all the time. “I thought you bailed,” he said unhappily. “Shit, I’m so sorry. We tried to find you, but no one had seen you and I just…well,” and he ducked his head, and Frank felt a hot burst of rage toward Them all over again. “Do you remember what they looked like? Should we call the cops?” Gerard started moving toward the pay phone nearby and Frank scrambled to his feet to stop him. Cops would be bad. Cops would ask many more questions than the hospital, with bigger ramifications, like why didn’t Frank have an ID, or a valid Social Security number, or any record of being alive at all?

“Dude, it’s fine,” and he got a hand around Gerard’s wrist, who froze and stared down at their hands like he thought they might explode. Frank instantly dropped it and held both palms forward in apology. “If I remember something later, I’ll call them, but right now it’s kind of a blur and I’d be pretty useless as a witness.” He smiled at him, even though it aggravated his lip. “I’m touched, though.”

A cloud passed over Gerard’s face, then. Frank watched with mounting confusion as Gerard tilted his head and squinted suspiciously at him for a long while. His shoulders suddenly went back and his eyes got huge again with dawning realization and Frank swallowed a cold ball of dread.

Uh oh.

“Frank,” Gerard said, his voice low and quiet. He looked very pale. “Are you in the Mob?”

It took a second for Frank to process it, but once he did, his jaw dropped and he gaped at Gerard in amazement. “Am I in the - “ Frank started to repeat, incredulous, but got waylaid by a giant laugh that burst out of him and startled Gerard. He broke down in helpless giggles of mirth compounded by the look of utter confusion on Gerard’s face, and they got worse every time he looked back up at Gerard’s increasingly furrowed brow. “The _Mob?_”

“Well, there was your neck yesterday,” Gerard said, impatient, but he had traces of a smile fighting at the corners of his mouth, and the harder Frank laughed the more Gerard seemed to be losing until finally he broke into a sheepish grin. “Well, what am I supposed to think? You get seriously injured two days in a row and you don’t want any police or medical intervention? It’s not impossible, come on.”

“Is it because I’m Italian?” Frank gasped, wiping at his eyes with the back of the hand not holding the towel. “Are you fuckin’ stereotyping me? The _Mob_,” he said again, almost wailing, and now Gerard was laughing with him, and they giggled together for a minute until Frank coughed and caught his breath back. “No. No, I am not in the Mob. I just have a certain proclivity for getting myself injured.”

Gerard, rosy-cheeked and crinkly-eyed with laughter, swatted at him. “Yeah, I’ll say. You’re, like, the unluckiest motherfucker on the planet.”

“God, tell me about it. If I didn’t know better I’d swear I was born on Friday the Thirteenth or something.” Frank moved back over to the newspaper box, grabbing his coffee to sip and shoving the rest of the Advil into his jacket pocket. His lip had starting bleeding again from exertion, not too bad but Frank definitely had a metallic taste in his mouth. He squeezed accumulated meltwater from the towel into the gutter and pressed it to his lip again. “I guess I got the next best one.”

“All sixes?”

Frank feigned hurt. “I’m not _that_ old,” he said. He remembered that he wanted a smoke, and went to pull one out. “Nah. You’ll like this.” He leaned in while he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and raised his eyebrows. “I was born on Halloween,” he said, as though revealing a huge secret. Gerard gasped, to his satisfaction.

“No you were not,” he said, breathless with glee, and Frank nodded like _I know, isn’t that wild? _“Fucker! If you get any cooler, I swear I’m gonna think I made you up.”

“Maybe you did.” Frank lit his cigarette and gave a nonchalant shrug. “Who’s to say I didn’t just fall out of the sky and into your lap?”

Gerard pretended to consider this, pulling a thoughtful face while looking up at the cloudless morning sky. “Perhaps,” he drawled, which made Frank snort. “Would that mean you’d be subject to my will?”

Frank wrinkled his nose. “Yikes. I am way too punk rock to exist on someone else’s terms. Even yours.”

“Okay, fair.” Gerard sniffed and cut a glance at him. “What if I asked nicely?”

“Better be real fuckin’ nice. I’m still bleeding over here.” Frank stuck his tongue out at him, and traded the towel/cigarette combo for another mouthful of coffee. He started to offer the cup to Gerard, but noticed the blood smeared around the lid and decided against it. “Nothing too beyond the pale, alright? I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but I’m not that kind of girl.”

It was sort of impressive just how fast and how red Gerard’s face turned at that. Frank hid a smirk in the top of his cup. “No! Uh, I didn’t think you were,” Gerard stammered, fidgeting and looking down at his shoes. Ugh, he was so fucking _cute_. “I just. Um. If you wanted, there’s this pretty good diner not too far from here that’s really cheap and only ever has, like, fifteen people in it max. I can drop you off after.” He fiddled nervously with the ends of his scarf.

“Aww.” Frank shifted his weight onto one side and tipped his head coyly at Gerard with a grin. “You wanna take me out for breakfast? Do you need me to set you up with Mob protection for something?”

Gerard rolled his eyes, but good-naturedly, and insisted, “Look, I feel terrible because I invited you to the show and you got the shit kicked out of you and - “

“That wasn’t your fault,” Frank interrupted. “Seriously, Gerard, if it hadn’t been the fuckin’ goons in the bathroom I would have definitely caught elbows in the pit and got the shit kicked out of me anyway. I wasn’t gonna leave that bar without bleeding. Don’t feel bad.” He held his cigarette in the corner of his mouth while he shook some ice out of the towel and into his coffee, swirled it around, and once the ice had melted he chugged the rest of the cup and hooked it into a garbage can next to the newspapers. “With that being said, however, I’m sure as shit not gonna to say no to pity waffles. Can I smoke in your car or should I put this out?”

It was well worth the coming re-education beating, Frank decided, to watch Gerard’s face split into a huge smile like the sun was shining out of it. He would miss him when this was over. What a shame there wasn’t a Gerard in his own timeline to befriend. “You can smoke, I don’t care,” he was saying, moving to open the driver’s side door. “Try not to bleed on the upholstery, though.”

Frank cheerfully flipped him off and dumped the ice towel into the trash, too. “From what I’ve seen of your artwork, my friend, blood on your seats would be an aesthetic improvement.” He climbed into the passenger’s seat. Gerard handed him a CD binder.

“Fine,” he allowed, as Frank flipped through discs and silently marveled at the fact that people actually had to do this once upon a time to play music in their cars. “Don’t bleed any more than is aesthetically appropriate on the upholstery, you ghoul.”

Frank stuck _Houdini_ by Melvins into the stereo. “Relax. Think of it as a souvenir.”

They talked about music on the ride over - Gerard was mostly into metal, alternative, and prog stuff with some punk leanings, and a lot of the bands he talked about were ones Frank knew of but hadn’t listened to. He let Gerard lead. Music was a tricky subject for time traveling. It was for Frank, at any rate, who couldn’t remember which albums had come out what years and was leery of making a mistake in the vein of waxing poetic on albums (or worse, bands) that didn’t exist yet. Lucky for him, Gerard turned out to be quite the talker when he knew his subject matter. They settled into a sort of pattern after a while, where Gerard would ask him about some album Frank hadn’t heard, Frank would find the CD in the binder and skip to whichever track Gerard told him to, and they talked about it until Gerard lit upon another album. It was so normal, it made Frank want to weep. They were listening to some goth metal band from England Gerard was recently obsessed with - “their singer changes costumes, like, every song, it’s amazing,” he gushed to Frank - when they turned onto the street with the diner and Frank got slapped so hard with nostalgia, it was like getting punched again.

“Wait,” he said, as they slowed and turned into the parking lot. “Wait, holy shit, I know this place! There’s a Catholic church down here, right?”

“Our Lady of Grace? The famous one? I think so,” said Gerard, absently, focused on finding a spot in the tiny lot. He made a victorious sound when he spotted one and banked a hard right to take it. “But it’s Jersey, dude, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a stained glass window.”

Frank rushed to get his door open and tumble out onto the pavement, spinning around to take in his surroundings with mounting excitement. “No, I know, because I’m thinking of a different one. Yeah!” he said, running to a corner of the parking lot and peering down the other side of the block. “Down there. St. Margaret of Cortona. My parents and I went to that church when they were still together. Man, that was forever ago.”

Gerard had come up behind him and was standing at his shoulder. “When did they split up?”

“Which time?” He stared at the little statue, of who he’d always assumed was St Margaret, next to the stoop. She looked exactly the same as she had when he was five - of course, she’d seemed bigger then. “They finally pulled the trigger for good right after my sixth birthday.” Frank found himself yearning to go inside, even though there was definitely a Mass going on in there and the thought of attending Mass made Frank’s skin crawl. Maybe it would all look the same. This timeline was proving a pretty close parallel to his own so far; why not this? September 2001. If he’d existed in this timeline, his dad would move to New Brunswick in just over a month and a half and his mom would start back up with the pills and the drinking and Frank would…He shook his head, hard, and turned to Gerard. “You know anything about St. Margaret?”

Gerard kicked at a weed in the sidewalk. “No. I’m a pretty lapsed Catholic myself.” Frank snorted.

“You’re preaching to the fucking choir.” He looked back to the church and rubbed his jaw, his fingers wandering down to the stitches on his neck. “She’s the patron saint of homeless people, single mothers, and the mentally ill. I looked her up when I started Catholic school. She was pretty cool.” Why was he telling Gerard this? He tore his gaze away from the stoop and the statue and looked down at his boots instead.

They stood there in silence for a moment, until Gerard quietly admitted, “My, uh, my parents split up, too.” Frank turned his head; Gerard was staring out over the street with his hands in his jacket pockets. “I was in middle school. And it sucked. So.” He met Frank’s eye and offered a weak smile. “I get it.”

Frank returned the smile and bumped him with his shoulder. “Man. I guess we both need pity waffles, huh?”

Gerard sniffed. “I was thinking sympathy hash browns myself.” Frank laughed, and followed him across the parking lot inside the diner. It was warm and not very crowded, like Gerard had said; just a handful of people scattered in pairs or on their own through the booths. Carly Simon played under the low conversations and sounds of silverware and kitchen noise. Smells of grease and sweet baked goods made Frank’s stomach loudly announce it was empty. There was no hostess; Gerard headed straight for a booth in the corner next to the front windows. Frank once again found himself facing the church as he took the bench opposite Gerard.

“Is there a clock in here? I have no idea what time it is,” he said, glancing around. Sometimes he missed smartphone culture. He never used to have to wonder. 

Gerard, thankfully, was wearing a watch. “Nine thirty-four.”

“Think they’re still having Mass?” Frank folded his hands on the tabletop and eyed the stoop. Would his mom still exist here?

“Probably. It’s an hour, right?” Gerard raised an eyebrow at him. “You got a hankering for Latin singing today or something?”

Frank made a face. “If I never hear another Mass for the rest of my life, it’ll be too soon.” He picked at his cuticles and shrugged. “Just hadn’t seen the place in awhile. We stopped going when we moved to North Arlington.”

They ordered coffee from the bubbly young waitress who came up to give them menus. Frank ordered waffles even though he knew they’d have dairy and eggs in them because very few things in 2001 were vegan, especially in diners, and his stomach was just going to have to deal. He tried the coffee before he added anything to it, but it was pure diner swill, so he emptied sugar packets into it until it tasted like nothing. Gerard peered at him over the top of his mug. 

“Does it still hurt?” he asked. 

“My face? Only a little. Or were you referring to the crushing agony of my childhood trauma?” Gerard started to laugh, but looked a little horrified at himself and stopped. Frank kicked lightly at him under the table. “Lighten up, Gee, that was _supposed_ to be funny. Sorry. My breakfast dates don’t usually start off this pathetically on my end.”

Gerard pulled a shocked face. “Oh no, are you not supposed to talk about your parents’ divorce on dates? No wonder no one calls me back.”

Frank burst out giggling, delighted - confidence! He’d thought Gerard would dissolve into blushing and stuttering again at the mere mention of the word “date.” Sarcasm was a pleasant surprise. He drummed his fingers against the table. “So what do we talk about instead? Hang on, let me get my conversation cards out.” He grinned when Gerard rolled his eyes and poured another sugar into his coffee. “You know, there is a lot of stupid small-talk-oriented shit I still don’t know about you.”

“Like?” Gerard unwound his scarf from around his neck and dropped on the bench beside him. 

“What do you do?”

Gerard spread his hands. “I mean, you saw. I’m a cartoonist. Right now I work for Cartoon Network.” He sighed. “Not doing a very good job or even enjoying it, really, but it beats retail.”

“Or coffee.” Frank leaned his chin into his hand. “That’s a pretty cool job to hate. What’s the sticking point?”

“Aw, man.” Gerard gave a somewhat bitter laugh and leaned all the way back in his seat. “Do you want the long version or the short version?”

Frank gave him a _duh_ look and said, “Long version. I don’t have anywhere to be.”

So Gerard told him the whole story - how he’d gotten the internship after art school, working on different shows and waiting for his opportunity to do his own thing, Joe and Asshole Glenn from CalArts, the rejected pitch. It took him all the way up until their food arrived to finish sharing it - by then, Frank had finished his first cup and Gerard’s hair stood nearly on end from all the times Gerard got agitated talking about something and stuck his hand in it. “So now, I don’t know what I want to do. I mean, a degree in cartooning isn’t exactly versatile, you know?”

Frank dumped a cavity-inducing amount of syrup over his waffles. “Well, they didn’t fire you. There’s still a chance for you to pitch something else down the line, isn’t there?”

“I guess.” Gerard glared down sullenly at his hash browns and stabbed a fork into them with more force than necessary. “But they’re gonna make me work on a bunch of projects I don’t care about until then. I didn’t exactly sign up to churn out storyboards. Or, well,” he amended, “I guess I sort of did, but not for this long. I’ve already been there two years. And I work in a _cubicle_. How fuckin’ depressing is that? No one goes to art school because they wanna work in a cubicle, Christ.”

“You went and finished, at least. I still haven’t finished my degree at Rutgers.” Frank popped a bite of waffle into his mouth. They might not have been vegan, but damn, they were good. “Dropped out to travel instead.”

“Yeah, but that’s _cool,_” Gerard countered, pointing at Frank with his fork. “You could always go back later, if you wanted. What was your major?”

Frank swallowed. “English. Not exactly a helpful one. I didn’t really want to be there in the first place, I just wanted to do music, but my dad was a musician and he insisted I had to have a backup plan.” He rolled his eyes. “Going into debt for a piece of paper that doesn’t even guarantee you a job once you get it is a stupid backup plan, if you ask me.”

“You play music?” said Gerard, looking interested, and Frank started to tell him about it, teaching himself to play guitar and his first band, but then he happened to glance out the window, where across the street Mass had just let out and people in their Sunday best were pouring out of the doors. His eyes lit upon a small woman with dark hair coming down the stoop, poking around in her purse for something - she looked familiar, very familiar, but not like his mom. He couldn’t place her because she wasn’t looking up, he couldn’t see her face to parse details, but then she found whatever she was looking for and she lifted her head and - 

It was Jamia.

Frank froze. He felt his eyes get huge and the words he was going to say died on his lips. All he could do was stare, because it was her, God, it was _her. _But it wasn’t. This timeline had its own version of her, for one, and two dawned on him the longer he watched her, because she reached out her hand to a tiny girl in a blue dress with hair just as dark and as the girl stepped in close and hugged her arm, the penny dropped and Frank realized he was seeing this timeline’s Jamia and her mom walk out of the very same church Frank spent every Sunday in until he was six.

He felt like he’d swallowed a ball of ice. Some part of him was aware that Gerard was looking at him and probably trying to get his attention, but he couldn’t look away from the window. Across the street, Jamia’s mom picked her up, and they made their way down the sidewalk together going the other way. Frank pressed a hand over his mouth, suddenly overwhelmed by an urge to shout, to run outside and follow them wherever they were going because it was the love of his life and he hadn’t seen her in close to five years now accounting for all the work he’d been away doing for Them, and even though it was the wrong version of her and she was tiny he just wanted to _see_ her, god damn it, and the next thing Frank knew there were tears in his eyes and he had to screw them shut to keep them from falling.

“Frank!” Gerard’s hand grabbed his, then, and Frank opened his eyes to find Gerard watching him across the table, wide-eyed with concern. “Are you okay? Who’s that girl you were staring at?”

Frank could only shake his head. His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth. It took him a second to pry it away. “She - I - it’s a long story.”

“I don’t have anywhere to be,” said Gerard, gently, and that made Frank want to cry even more because fuck, Gerard was so nice, and if this timeline was anything near the one Frank came from then he was going to be dead in three years and there was nothing Frank could do for him and he was so fucking _sick_ of meeting people he knew were doomed. People he could never see again. People he couldn’t save. Frank scrubbed hard at both eyes with his hand and pulled the other one out of Gerard’s grasp - he saw the confusion and hurt flash across Gerard’s face before he stood up out of the booth.

“I can’t,” he said to him, helplessly. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I’ll see you around.” As he turned and sped toward the doors, headlines from the research he’d done before coming here leapt out at him in his mind like poltergeists: “Frontman Gerard Way overdoses outside My Chemical Romance tour bus,” “27 Club gains a new member from pop punk outfit My Chemical Romance,” “Sophomore slump: My Chemical Romance loses singer to drug overdose just a month after second album release,” “Warped Tour officials under investigation after death of touring member Gerard Way.” An interview with Mikey and the other three surviving members of the band ten years later, where Mikey broke down in tears on camera.

“Frank, wait!” he heard Gerard calling behind him, but Frank didn’t turn around. He barreled through the front door, started running once he hit the parking lot and didn’t stop running until he was panting in front of his apartment door. He braced his forearm against the wall and buried his face in the crook of his elbow, tears mixing with sweat and stinging in the cuts all over his face.

They were ruining his life. He just knew They had a hand in Jamia being in that church, that They were fucking with him on purpose because he wasn’t doing exactly what They wanted him to at all times and because They fucking could. He was powerless to stop it and he was powerless to leave until this repair was over and he couldn’t bring himself to keep seeing Gerard all the time knowing where he ended up, which was precisely what They wanted him to feel.

Frank reared back and slammed his fist into the wall, hard, feeling the skin over his knuckles split with a sick sort of satisfaction. Shaking his hand out, he unlocked the front door and headed straight for the sink to rinse off the fresh blood. On the countertop was a piece of paper that hadn’t been there before he’d left; he knew without looking that it was from Them. They always left Their final instructions for repairs in person when Frank was in a timeline before smartphones. He ignored it until he’d bandaged his knuckles, and glanced over it with a lighter already in hand - it was burning before he’d gotten to the last one. Watching the paper curl and blacken in the bottom of the kitchen sink, Frank knew he wouldn’t follow any of it. He would finish this repair on his own terms, for once, and when it was complete he was going home to find Jamia and never step foot outside his own timeline again.

Two more days.


	5. Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seized by an abrupt rage, Gerard hauled off and chucked his empty cup at a nearby trash can as hard as he could. What was the fucking point of putting himself through months of bullshit for a fucking internship? What the hell was he doing?

Being that Gerard didn’t have much romantic experience, he hadn’t been personally familiar with the idea of mixed signals until Frank used the word “date” to describe breakfast and then promptly ran out on him after staring at a woman with her kid outside. He’d never been ditched twice in a row by the same person before. It was pretty fucking disheartening, not to mention embarrassing; Gerard actually ran out the door after him, but once Frank took off running down the street, he had to give up and slink back inside to their table. He didn’t much feel like eating afterward, or looking the waitress who had definitely witnessed his abject humiliation in the eye, so he just left cash on the table and got back in his car to go home.

He was too perplexed to keep the stereo on, and while the silence wasn’t necessarily better it was less distracting. Was this just bad timing? Clearly he and Frank had met at a weird time in Frank’s life. Since he’d almost burst into tears at the sight of that woman outside, Gerard had to guess that she was probably his ex. Maybe that was recent. Maybe that was Frank’s kid, he realized with a pang, and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. Jesus. There was a potential minefield.

“Sounds like it’s time to get out of the way of the bullet,” Mikey told him later, sitting on the edge of the bathtub while Gerard was laid up in it waiting for his fresh hair dye to process. “Seriously, dude, this is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Because he was pathetic, Gerard was coloring the fucking Sweeney Frank drawing, sketchpad propped up on his thighs. He’d skipped Frank’s eyes for now - the decision was still pending on which was the correct green - and he paused his shine work on the blade to glare over at Mikey. “So charitable of you. What if he’s just going through a lot right now?”

Mikey gave him an incredulous look. “I _know_ your self-esteem isn’t that fucking low. He ran out on you twice!”

“There were other circumstances,” Gerard mumbled, and Mikey shoved at him.

“Don’t be an idiot, Gerard. He’s practically handing you red flags and you’re just ignoring them because he’s hot and told you he liked your drawings.”

Gerard threw down his marker and glowered at him, then. “I wasn’t fucking born yesterday, alright? He’s got issues. I can see that. I’m not trying to get _engaged _to the guy, for Christ’s sake.”

Mikey fixed him with a cold stare. “So what? You’re gonna be his port in the storm instead?”

“Fuck you.” His cheeks hot, Gerard returned to scribbling furiously at his drawing and didn’t look up when Mikey huffed and left a minute later. He stopped when the bathroom door slammed, and bashed the palm of his hand against his forehead, letting out an aggravated sigh. Whatever Mikey seemed to think, Gerard wasn’t naïve and he wasn’t a fucking doormat. Frank might not be in a good place for a relationship but he clearly needed _someone, _and Gerard wasn’t just going to give up on him because he had baggage. Gerard wasn’t exactly the picture of perfect mental health, either. Coloring Frank’s picture didn’t have the same appeal to it now, though, and Gerard let the pad drop to the bathtub floor.

A few hours later, once Gerard’s mom had deemed his hair done and Gerard was back at his desk staring at green markers, Mikey came down to the basement and hung silent at the base of the stairs. After a couple minutes of mutually pretending to ignore each other, Mikey stole forward and deposited a jewel case on the corner of the desk.

“I made this earlier this week,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. “Bootleg of that goth metal band’s show in Leeds.”

Gerard glanced at it, and then at Mikey, who was looking off at a corner of the ceiling. He slowly pulled the case toward him until it was sitting beside his sketchpad. Mikey nodded, started to go back upstairs, and then turned to point at the asparagus green marker next to Gerard’s left hand before leaving for good.

“Thanks,” said Gerard, as Mikey pushed open the basement door.

“Let me know if it doesn’t work,” Mikey replied, and that was the end of it. The only time they’d apologized to each other out loud after a fight, as in saying the actual words, was the time when they were eight and five and Gerard got mad at Mikey for stealing his Batman eraser. He’d tripped him running around the corner in the hall, and Mikey had fallen and knocked out his front tooth on the top stair, and they both cried. Every other fight ended much like this one - zero fanfare, no acknowledgement of what happened, just some kind of silent truce and then they went back to being best friends. Gerard put the CD on while he started in on Frank’s eyes with the asparagus green.

That night, Mikey’s roommate picked him up to head back to their dorm, and Gerard went upstairs to give him a hug before he left. “What time do you want me there tomorrow?” he said, as Mikey pulled on a jacket.

“We’re going to Sheila’s at seven-ish for pregame, are you gonna make it back by then?” said Mikey, and Gerard shook his head. “Well, meet us at the club at like, nine.”

Gerard crossed his arms and leaned up against the doorframe, watching Mikey shoulder his backpack and head down the sidewalk. “Go to class tomorrow,” he called after him. “Just cause it’s your birthday doesn’t mean you get to slack off.” Mikey waved from the curb, got into the car, and was gone.

Gerard stayed up way too late to finish coloring the Sweeney Frank drawing, pounding cup after cup of coffee till almost three, and slept through his first three alarms the next morning; his eyes snapped open at half past eight. He panicked at the sight of the strong sunlight trickling through his tiny window, flailing out from the sheets and scrambling to get dressed, swearing to himself the whole time. His mom opened the basement door as he was hurrying out of it and they nearly collided on the threshold.

“I thought you left already!” she yelled at him, or rather at the back of him as he ran for the front door.

“Overslept,” he yelled back, throwing open the door and dashing out to his car. Fuck fuck fuck, he was so late, and naturally he got stuck in the ferry traffic crush and just barely squeezed onto the nine o’clock boat. By the time he skidded into the office, it was close to nine forty. Worse, everyone looked at him when he came in, and there was some kind of meeting happening because everyone was standing in a big circle instead of sitting at their desks, and Stephen, Gerard’s boss, instantly surged forward from where he was standing at the center.

“Gerard, hey, we were starting to worry about you! Everything okay?” he said, and clapped Gerard on the shoulder in a weirdly dad-esque way even though Stephen was, like, maybe five years older than Gerard was. Gerard offered an awkward smile and tugged at his bag strap.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m fine. Got stuck in traffic. Uh.” Everyone was still staring at him. What was that about? Asshole Glenn was leaned up against the water cooler and _smirking_ at him, God, what a dickhead. But seriously, the staring was weird. Some of them had pity faces on. Lisa, who satin the cube across from Joe, was the only one not trying to bore holes through Gerard’s skull with her eyes - she actually looked like she was trying not to cry. “What’s up?”

Stephen glanced away toward the room, and then looked back at Gerard with a simpering expression that instantly made alarms go off in Gerard’s head. Oh, fuck. Was he about to get fucking fired? “I’m afraid there’s some bad news this morning, buddy.” Ugh. Stephen loved to call everyone _buddy,_ like they were all on the football team together or something. Gerard tried to look neutral. “Joe’s decided to look for a different opportunity. He packed up a couple hours ago. And uh, I gotta say, what with you two being thick as thieves on Breakfast Monkey, we were starting to wonder if we were gonna get a let-down of a phone call from you! But we’re glad you stuck around, bud. And hey, I know it’s tough on Mondays, but let’s try to make it in before nine, okay?”

Gerard’s jaw dropped. He could only stare as Stephen slapped his shoulder again and stepped back into the circle. Joe _quit_? Without telling him? He wanted to ask questions, namely _what the fuck_, but Stephen was already moving on to something else that Gerard wasn’t listening to. He looked over at Lisa pleadingly, but she pressed her lips together and minutely shook her head. And now that the bomb had been dropped, no one was staring at him anymore. Gerard raised his hands sort of helplessly by his sides and let them fall again. Joe was the only person here he talked to. Even Lisa really only talked to him because he and Joe worked together. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? Why hadn’t Joe talked to him?

“But that’s enough bummer stuff for one Monday!” Stephen suddenly exclaimed, and Gerard blinked hard and started listening again. “Onto the good news! Glenn, you want to join me over here?” Asshole Glenn pushed himself off the water cooler and sauntered over to Stephen, who threw an arm over his shoulders and beamed at the room. Gerard suddenly got a horrible, sinking feeling in his stomach. Especially when Asshole Glenn looked right at him and gave him that oily, smug leer. “Ladies and gentlemen, Glenn pitched his limited run cartoon last Friday, and I’m thrilled to announce that the network is giving it a green light! Let’s give it up for him!”

Polite applause joined the roaring sound of rushing blood in Gerard’s ears. Oh, Jesus. This was not happening. It could not be possible that Joe quit and Asshole Glenn got his own show on the same fucking day. Gerard had clearly woken up in an alternate universe, or Hell. He gazed in dull horror at a framed poster of _Johnny Bravo_ on the wall, his cheeks hot and his head spinning.

“…Lisa, Kurt, Gerard, and Constantin, you guys will all be with Glenn starting tomorrow. Go ahead and use today to tie up the last couple strings on your current projects. Gerard, if you’re not too busy, do you mind taking over on Joe’s leftover stuff?”

Gerard just nodded. 

“Great, thanks buddy! Alrighty, folks, that’s all I’ve got for you. Let’s crush it today!”

The room scattered. Gerard numbly walked over to his cubicle and dumped his bag onto his desk. He blinked at his calendar, fixated blankly on the past Monday’s double-circled date with the word “PITCH!” scrawled in excitement, and then turned around to wander into Joe’s cube instead. Everything was gone. Except for the desk, the chair, and the little shelf where Joe had kept his tapes, it was empty. The only evidence it had ever been occupied were the little pinholes in the cube walls where Joe tacked up his boards. Gerard stared at where the Breakfast Monkey boards had been, and felt sick. Forget last Friday. This was the new worst day of his whole life.

“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Lisa’s voice said right behind him, and Gerard jumped and turned around. Her long green hair fell around her face from a haphazard bun on top of her head. There were undeniable tears in her eyes now, and she sniffled, arms hugging her middle. “I came in and all his stuff was already out. Did he say anything to you?”

He shook his head and swallowed. Lisa wiped under her eyes, smearing her glittery makeup in streaks over her cheeks, and took a step closer.

“I don’t think I can be on Glenn’s art team,” she whispered. “He was a real son of a bitch about y’all’s project. Not that he had anything nice to say about anyone’s work, but you two especially. Do you think he picked us on purpose?”

“Yeah,” said Gerard, dully, and turned to head back to his own cubicle. “Yeah, I think he did.”

Joe hadn’t left that much work behind, but in tandem with all of Gerard’s unfinished stuff, it felt like an avalanche dumped on top of him. He spent the rest of the morning going down the rabbit hole; by lunch, he was crawling the walls with anxiety and he’d taken way too many smoke breaks. All he could think about was getting the fuck out and getting coffee because he’d never had time to get a cup and he had a wicked headache coming on. He finished off the cigarettes he’d bought before the Six Hell Slaughter show on the ferry back to Union City. He’d considered not going to Keen Bean and giving Frank some space after his freakout the day before, but he wanted to invite him to Mikey’s party and he didn’t have his phone number. If it was weird, then it was weird - he still wanted to try.

But Frank wasn’t there. Instead, a willowy girl with short red hair and a million freckles who Gerard had seen a few times (her name might have been Rowan?) waved at him as he walked in. “Art guy!” she said, and for a second Gerard had a hard time parsing the idea that he was enough of a regular here to get recognized, if not by name. “Medium latte with a sugar, right? Do you want that in a mug?”

“Just in a to-go cup is fine,” he all but sighed, momentarily distracted by the promise of caffeine, and then he shook his head. “Um, is Frank working today?”

Already busy prepping shots, she glanced back up at him with a slightly puzzled expression. “Frank? I don’t think there’s a Frank here.”

Gerard frowned. “Tons of tattoos? Dark hair? Classic punk?”

“Huh. Must be new. I was out of town over the weekend, but Cheryl mentioned hiring someone.” She banged the puck press on the edge of the counter to clean it out. “It’s just me till four. I can take a message for you if you want, in case he’s in later.”

“That would be awesome.” Gerard patted his pockets for a pen, didn’t find one, and dug into his bag instead. He moved over to his usual spot to drag out his sketchbook and flipped to the Sweeney Frank drawing. Uncapping a marker with his teeth, he jotted his home phone number on the back along with the invitation and the name of the club, and ripped it off the pad. “Um, if you could just give him this, and tell him it’s from Gerard.” He folded it up, and traded it for his coffee. She opened the cash register and dropped it inside as he was leaving.

Gerard didn’t go back to the ferry terminal straight away. Instead, he took his coffee and found a payphone to call Joe. He’d considered calling him from the office phone, but if Joe was pissed off enough to quit without notice then he was probably screening his calls in case management tried to get in touch with him. Gerard was unsurprised when he didn’t get an answer; he did leave a message asking to get coffee and talk. After he hung up, he went for a short walk down by the waterfront. The idea of going back to work and finishing Joe’s projects was an extremely depressing one: Gerard thought about the empty cube, and the stupid smug smirk on Asshole Glenn’s stupid smug face, and Lisa’s sparkly tear streaks. Poor Lisa. Her huge crush on Joe, ongoing for at least as long as Gerard had worked there, was obvious to everyone except Joe. She must have been devastated to see all his stuff gone. Gerard hoped, if nothing else, Joe would at least get back in touch with her.

Fuck. He didn’t want to go back. Without Joe, it was just him versus Asshole Glenn for the rest of preproduction - the days stretched out in front of him, suddenly crystal clear, months of bickering and belittling and Asshole Glenn touching his action figures while lording over the entire intern team how much better and more interesting his work _obviously_ was since the network picked up _his_ show. Seized by an abrupt rage, Gerard hauled off and chucked his empty cup at a nearby trash can as hard as he could. What was the fucking point of putting himself through months of bullshit for a fucking internship? What the hell was he doing?

“God _damn_ it!” he shouted at nothing, and scrubbed his hands over his face. Everything had gotten so fucked in, like, a weekend. Lisa was right. There was no way he could work on Asshole Glenn’s show after they’d spent months openly loathing each other. Stephen was smoking crack if he thought they would play nice until the show went to the animation crew. They’d kill each other. Or Gerard would just kill himself instead. 

How the fuck did he end up here?

* * *

Beeeeeeep. Beeeeeeep. Beeeeeeep. Beeee_ \- _click.

_“Hello?”_

Frank pulled the phone away from his ear and fought like hell against the sob rising in his throat. He took the deepest, most silent breath he could manage, let it out, and returned to the phone. “Hey Jamia, is that you?” he said, forcing a casual lilt into his voice.

_“Um, yeah, this is Jamia. Who’s this?”_

“‘Who’s this?’” he repeated, grinning. His heart pounded in his throat; he felt it pulsing in his stitches. “Honey, it’s me. It’s Frank.”

_“Oh, Frank!”_ She laughed, and Frank had to close his eyes and just listen, drinking it in. _“Clingy much? You just left my apartment not even ten minutes ago.”_

He remembered. He had timed this very carefully. “I know. But I missed you, and also I forgot something.”

_“You’re ridiculous.”_ God, he could picture her face when she said it, the quirky little smile when she thought he was being funny. _“I haven’t seen anything of yours yet. What should I be looking for?”_

“Oh, uh, no, sorry, not like that. I meant I forgot to do something. While I was there.” Frank shifted, pressed his back closer against the door. He doubted They would try to come in that way, but it gave him a tactical advantage. He glanced down at his reset watch balanced on his knee.

_“Which was?”_

“I didn’t set up our next date,” he said, and tightened his fingers around the gun handle when he heard a noise in the hall outside. His index finger ghosted over the trigger as he raised the pistol, barrel angled up toward the ceiling, and turned his head to press his right ear against the wood. His left hand pressed his Them phone so hard against his head, he thought it might leave a mark.

_“Oh, was that a date? Here I thought you were just being a gentleman,”_ Jamia teased, while Frank held his breath and waited for another sound from outside. When none came, he relaxed, although he didn’t put the gun down. _“Got something in mind?”_

Oh boy, did he. He’d spent five years planning this date in his head. Of course, he didn’t tell her that. “I’ve got some ideas. When are you free?”

_“Hmmm.”_ He heard her tap on her phone a few times, and after a pause, she said, _“I’m not working Friday. So I could do Thursday night, if that works for you.”_

Frank tipped his head back and smiled. “That’s perfect. I’ll pick you up at six? Wear something you wouldn’t mind getting arrested in.”

She gasped. _“Frank, that is not fucking funny! You can’t be a nurse with a criminal record.”_

“Don’t worry. You won’t get in trouble, I promise. I’ll be your fall guy.” Frank hugged his knees to his chest. “But come prepared for an adventure. You’ll love it. Trust me.”

_“Yeah, okay,”_ she said, suspicion dripping from her words, and Frank laughed, and carefully angled the gun out toward the rest of the apartment._ “But if you get my scholarship pulled, I swear I will never speak to you again.”_

“Cross my heart, your scholarship is safe.” Frank started to put the pistol on the floor, but he heard another sound, this one from inside the apartment, and he had it back up and aimed between heartbeats. “Jamia, listen, I don’t have a lot of time here, I found, like, the last working payphone in Jersey - “

_“Is everything okay?”_

“Everything’s totally fine,” Frank lied, jamming the phone between his ear and shoulder to cram his reset watch into his pocket and rise slowly to his feet. “Just outta quarters. Um.” He swallowed hard. “I meant what I said tonight on the bridge. It sounds crazy or whatever - “ There was another sound, louder, and Frank finished in a rush of air -“but I’m a huge believer in love at first sight and I absolutely fell in love with you the instant I stopped you on the sidewalk and I’ve been waiting for that moment my whole life, you know?” He sucked in a breath. There was no burnt-fuse smell, but that didn’t mean They weren’t here. Sometimes They came for him the old-fashioned way.

_“I know,”_ said Jamia, a smile in her voice. If They were gonna make him redundant for this, Frank prayed the last thing he heard was the sound of her voice. _“I felt it, too.”_

Despite his growing terror, Frank’s heart soared. He grinned, overwhelmed with feeling, and continued, “Okay. Wow, okay. Um. So I want you to know, honey, that whatever happens, I’m all in. I don’t care how fucking crazy it is, I want to be with you as far as this thing goes, whether that’s a week or the rest of my life. Doesn’t matter. I’m all in. What d’you say?” A crash from behind his bedroom door. Frank fixed the gun on it.

Jamia giggled down the line. _“Oh my God. Is this really happening to me? Are you serious?”_

“Sober as a hard-ass judge, baby.” Frank moved in careful steps toward the door. “I don’t want to fuck around. I just want you. Please say yes.”

_“Yes,”_ she said instantly, and Frank would have punched the air if he’d had a hand free. _“Yeah, I’m in. Holy shit, Frank, this is insane!”_

“It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be fucking amazing,” Frank promised, and stopped just short of the threshold. He grabbed the phone again with his left hand. “I have to go, honey, but I love you so much, okay? And I’ll see you on Thursday.”

_“Please tell me you were kidding about getting arrested.”_

Frank gave a huge smile, which faltered when something hit the door from the other side. “Maybe. Guess you’ll have to find out.”

_“I love you, too,”_ she told him then, and it was just like getting punched, but in the most incredible way. He fought back the overpowering urge to grab his watch and go back to her that instant - fuck Them, fuck this repair, fuck this timeline and everyone in it. Instead, he white-knuckled the phone and took a deep breath through his nose. _“I’ll wear running shoes.”_

He smiled, eyes stinging. “That’s my girl. I’ll see you soon. I love you,” he said, and hung up even though it hurt, and tossed the phone away down the hall. “Whoever’s behind there,” he said loudly, renewing his grip on the pistol, “I promise that if you try to stop me from seeing her on Thursday, I will fucking destroy you.”

Nothing happened. No sound, no movement. Frank grabbed the doorknob, heart in his throat. “Have it your way, you fucking pussies,” he muttered, and in one move threw open the door and barged through with his finger on the trigger. The room was empty - he immediately eyed the shut closet, but then something brushed his leg, and he looked down to find a cat twining itself around his leg. “Seriously?” he said, and burst into relieved giggles as all the tension went out of him at once. The window to the fire escape was open - duh, he’d been smoking out of it earlier - and all the stuff that had been on his bedside table, including a lamp, was now on the floor. Frank shook his head at himself, flipped the safety back on the pistol and shoved it into the back waistband of his jeans. “All right, little dude, you’ve given me enough of a heart attack for one day,” he said, and scooped up the cat to return it to the fire escape and shut the window. He cleaned up the broken lamp and set the bedside table back to rights before he went to retrieve his Them phone and took the gun out of his waistband. Both went into the bedside table drawer, along with his reset watch, and he locked it with the only other key on his keyring.

He wondered what sort of punishment he was in for now. Anything was possible. Contacting Jamia was a huge violation of Their rules and he’d be paying for it one way or another. An involuntary shudder went through him, and he pressed his hands over his face for a brief moment to collect himself.

Next order of business: Keen Bean. He had to quit before tomorrow.

* * *

Gerard kicked around piles of stuff in his room, on a quest to find the tiny pot of red eyeshadow he’d bought at Ulta a million years ago because he wanted to try the look he’d planned the other night. He was going to be late to Mikey’s party because of it, but he really needed the armor makeup gave him. Gerard was not a club person. For one, clubs were full of people, and two, the only things to do at a club were get drunk and dance - the former was alright, but the latter was a nightmare. For all the hours his grandma had spent trying to teach him, Gerard still couldn’t dance if his life depended on it. He also hated the music, and he never knew what to wear - but it was Mikey’s birthday. He wanted to go out, and Gerard would suck it up, for him.

He hadn’t gone back to work after lunch. From the same payphone, he’d called Stephen and told him he was sorry but he wasn’t feeling very well and would it be all right if he finished up Joe’s stuff at home instead? Stephen allowed it, though he didn’t sound stoked about it, and Gerard got in his car and drove to his grandma’s instead. He always went to her when he was having a crisis, which seemed to be more and more these days - she didn’t mind him dropping in unannounced, and sometimes he’d run errands for her if she had any. She was giving a piano lesson when he got there; he waited on the back porch until the music stopped, and when he went inside, she was sorting through her giant filing cabinet of sheet music looking for something.

“My word, I think I must have conjured you. Do you remember that piece I had you sing a couple weeks ago?” she said, once they’d exchanged hugs and hellos. “I know it was a musical, but I can’t remember which one. I wanted to give it to my student.”

“Uh.” Gerard thought back to the last time he’d been over and hummed through the tune - the words were slower to come. “‘I Could Write a Book,’” he said, as he landed on the line. “From _Pal Joey._”

“That’s it!” She returned to her filing cabinet with renewed fervor, and emerged with a thick manila folder. “Definitely not a song for you, but a good one all the same. Now,” she said, dropping it on the piano lid and turning expectantly back to Gerard. “What’s going on, hon? You’re supposed to be at work right now.”

To Gerard’s surprise, he managed to tell her the whole story at work without crying, although he did get pretty pissed off talking about Asshole Glenn and his stupid fucking show - “What kid wants to watch a cartoon about a candle workshop?” he’d fumed - and when he got to the end he found himself repeating the same refrain he’d told to Mikey and Frank. “I don’t know what to do. This job isn’t what I thought it would be after two years and it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna get better any time soon.” He flopped back against the couch cushion with a heavy sigh. “Everything just sort of sucks right now.”

Elena gave him a look that was so identical to the one his mom gave him when she thought he was being dramatic, he almost burst out laughing. “Kiddo, you don’t have to work there if you hate it.”

“But what else is there?” Gerard exclaimed, flinging his hands into the air. “I’m a cartoonist, Grandma, it’s not exactly a big fuckin’ field. If I left Cartoon Network, I would definitely have to find a new career. There wouldn’t be any going back.”

“And would that be so bad?” She reached out and put her hand on his knee. “Gerard, I’ve been telling you this since you were a kid. Life is short. If you need to try a different path, then you try it, but you don’t have to make yourself miserable because you think it’s all you’ve got.”

Gerard thought about that now, under his desk searching for the eyeshadow. She was probably right. But what else could he do? He’d tried doing comic books, that hadn’t worked out. Animation wasn’t working out. Going back to school was not an option. Maybe Mikey had it all along, and there was something in music for him? Ugh. Being an adult was terrible. He caught a glimpse of something promising just as he was going to crawl out from beneath the desk. He pushed aside a heap of discarded sketches. “YES,” he shouted, as he came away in triumph with the eyeshadow. “Gotcha, motherfucker!”

The house phone rang. Gerard gave it a couple seconds to see if his mom would get it; when she didn’t, he heaved an inconvenienced sigh and crawled over to his extension on the nightstand. He held the receiver to his ear with his shoulder. “Way residence, Gerard speaking.” He unscrewed the cap off the pot and dragged his fingertip through the eyeshadow to see if it had dried out.

_“Hey! Gerard, uh, it’s Frank.”_

“Frank!” Gerard clambered to his feet for some reason, still holding the eyeshadow. Holy shit. He’d forgotten all about giving Frank his phone number. “Hi! You got my message?”

_“Yeah, Rowan gave it to me at the shop. Did you draw this for me? It’s fuckin’ awesome,”_ Frank said. Gerard found himself nodding earnestly before he remembered Frank couldn’t see him.

“I did! I’m glad you like it, it’s a lot more finished than the sketches I gave you, um, more representative of the kind of work I usually do.” If the phone had a cord, he’d have been winding it around his finger. Jesus. He was so whipped. “So, Mikey’s party. You want to come?”

_“Oh, definitely. Thanks for inviting me. But, uh, before that…Gerard, I want to apologize for yesterday. I just, I lost my fucking cool for no good reason, and it was super lame of me to run out on you like that, especially after Saturday and all. My life isn’t usually this weird. I’m sorry.”_

Gerard clutched the phone with both hands, eyeshadow dropping to the floor. “No, please, it’s totally fine. I’ve been going through some shit myself, so, don’t even worry about it.” He took a deep breath before he continued, “Um, I do have to ask. That girl. Is she…?”

There was a long pause from Frank’s end. Gerard almost thought he’d hung up until he said, _“Not my daughter, if that’s what you’re asking. But yeah, we’ve got history.”_

“I’m sorry,” Gerard told him, because he knew that if Kat hadn’t moved to the city right after she’d dumped him he probably would have cried seeing her around, too. A large part of him was deeply relieved to hear that Frank wasn’t a dad, although he didn’t say that part out loud. “That’s rough.”

_“Thanks.”_ He heard a crackling sigh, and then Frank said brightly, _“So! Party even though I don’t deserve it. What time?”_

Gerard glanced at his alarm clock. “I’ll be there around nine-thirty, but Mikey might be there already, I’m not sure. Do you want a ride? I can pick you up on the way.” It wasn’t really on the way, he didn’t think, but hello, more time with Frank before he had to deal with club chaos wasn’t something he was gonna turn down.

_“Nah, I’ll figure it out. I’ll see you there. And uh, thanks for understanding about everything. You’re a really good guy, Gerard, you know that? I’m glad I met you.”_

Gerard screamed in his head, jumped around like a fucking lunatic and tried to sound normal when he replied, “I’m glad I met you, too, Frank. Um. I’ll see you.” He gingerly set the receiver back on the cradle, and buried his face in his hands to muffle a shout of delight. Frank thought he was a good guy! He was going to Mikey’s party! Gerard could so cope with club assholes if it meant getting to be with Frank for a couple hours. With a renewed, excited determination, he picked up the eyeshadow off the carpet and fished around for makeup brushes. If Frank was going to be there, he needed this look to be perfect.

Somewhere in the universe, a countdown on the giant proverbial clock started ticking.


	6. Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Being so cute,” said Gerard without thinking, and then heard what he said and instantly wanted to die. Frank said nothing at first, just grinned and glanced out toward the dance floor while Gerard searched the floor for holes that could swallow him.

As expected, the club was loud, packed, and chaotic. Gerard stood in the maelstrom and clutched a gin lemonade, which was blue for some reason, while doing his best not to look like he was ten seconds from a panic attack. He’d seen Mikey for a grand total of thirty seconds, when he went to find him when he first arrived - he was plastered, which Gerard expected, and wearing a “BIRTHDAY PRINCESS” sash and tiara meant for a five-year-old, which Gerard did not. The tiara was pink, and askew. Mikey called his name as soon as he spotted him, and staggered over with his arms open and an uncharacteristic face-splitting grin.

“Happy birthday, princess,” he’d shouted in Mikey’s ear when Mikey collapsed against him for a hug. “How’re you feeling?”

“Duuuuuude. Everything is _amazing_,” Mikey gushed, clumsily pulling at Gerard’s shoulders. Bright purples and pinks flashed over his face, enough that Gerard could make out Mikey’s blown pupils. Great. He was rolling. Gerard held onto Mikey’s elbows to keep him upright, and give him a subtle once-over to make sure he was okay. “The, fuckin’, Evan at the door guy, he made this whoooole big _thing_ out of checking my real ID, and then at the end they gave me these!" He gestured to the sash with a flourish. "I told you they’re nice here! They’re soooo nice.”

Gerard tucked his tongue into his cheek to keep from smiling too much. “You are gonna be _so_ sad tomorrow,” he told him, and Mikey nodded with big solemn eyes before dissolving into inebriated laughter. “I’m gonna get a drink. Do you want some water?”

“Nooooo!” Mikey shoved at Gerard, which sent Mikey teetering, and Gerard grabbed onto the sash before he fell all the way over. “Don’t try to _big brother_ me on my birthday, I’m fuckin’ fine!”

“You’re high,” said Gerard, looping an arm around Mikey’s waist. “What’d you take?”

“Stop, you’re ruining it,” Mikey complained as Gerard dragged him over to one of the bars. “Come oooon, Gerard, it’s just molly, it’s fiiiine - “

Gerard held onto the sash while he ordered to keep Mikey from escaping. “Molly makes you hot, dumbass. You have to drink water or you’ll pass out.” He leaned over the bar to shout to the bartender, “Can you put the water in a martini glass so he’ll actually drink it?” The bartender nodded, glancing at Mikey with a smile, and handed Gerard both the gin lemonade and the martini-glass water, the latter of which Gerard passed off to Mikey. He drank some of it, but mostly splashed it all over his shirt, which Gerard supposed was better than nothing. He turned to pick up his own drink, and in the nanosecond Gerard wasn’t paying attention to him, Mikey disappeared among the throng. Gerard rolled his eyes. Yes, Mikey was an adult and strictly speaking, Gerard didn’t need to babysit him. But he knew Mikey, and Mikey didn’t ask questions when people presented him with substances. He might balk at a needle, but that was where his discretion ended. Gerard would keep tabs on him just to make sure.

But Mikey had been nowhere to be found for a good half an hour, and Gerard had downed three blue gin lemonades in that time and wasn’t feeling any less anxious. He’d found a wall to cling to and watched the room from there. The club was a warehouse conversion along the waterfront, which meant it was huge - there were three bars just on the bottom floor and Gerard was pretty sure there was one on the balcony floor too, but since that was apparently the VIP section he hadn’t bothered trying to get up the stairs. The whole place was full of fog. Colored lights glittered dizzily over the dance floor, which was basically every square inch of the place not taken up by the bars. Blaring house music drilled into his ears and the bass was cranked so high Gerard felt like his heart was starting to beat in time with it. He kind of wanted a cigarette, but he wasn’t sure that if he left he’d have it in him to come back.

He still hadn’t spotted Frank, if he’d arrived. Should he be closer to the door? That meant leaving the wall. Maybe he needed another drink first. Gerard tossed back the rest of the current one and pushed himself toward the closest bar. He shuffled awkwardly between bodies, ducking around limbs, and then a slender girl in a crop top with waist-length dark hair snagged his belt as he tried to slip past her and dragged him in.

“Hey there, wallflower,” she said, loud enough to be heard, and slid her hands around his waist. She was gorgeous, from what he could tell between the erratic lights - she had ice blue eyes and a full mouth, and cheekbones like a marble statue. There was a butterfly painted on one of them. “What are you hiding from over there?”

Gerard gave a nervous laugh. “Well. This,” he said, gesturing to the wave of people around them with his empty glass. “Not, uh - not a dancer, um,” he sort of stammered at the end when she trailed her fingertips up over his chest and laced her fingers together behind his neck. They were the same height, he noticed, as she pulled him closer. His free hand automatically dropped to her hip. 

“I’m Sage,” she told him. Up close, he could see her long eyelashes and details of the butterfly. She was even prettier from here. Gerard found himself glancing down at her lips. “Dance with me?”

“Uhhh,” said Gerard, brilliantly, and then suddenly she was kissing him, and he was spared whatever stupid thing he was going to say next. His eyes fluttered shut - damn, it had been a long time since he’d been kissed - and his fingers splayed over her warm skin. Her tongue slipped into his mouth - wait, there was something there, did she have a tongue piercing? She broke the kiss for a moment, but the little oblong thing was still in his mouth. Oh shit. It was a fucking _pill_. He managed to tuck it up into his gums before he swallowed it, and tried to pull away when she started kissing him again. “What the fuck?”

She laughed, and cupped his cheek. “Don’t worry, baby,” she cooed, while Gerard took a step back. “It won’t hurt you. I just want you to dance.” Gerard fought off her next advance and shoved his way through another dancing couple to get away, her laughter following behind him like a taunt, and he spit the pill out on the floor once he was clear of the dancers. Jesus fucking Christ. Was that what happened to Mikey? What the fuck kind of club was this? He started to move toward the bar, but felt a hand on the small of his back; annoyed, he spun on his heel expecting Sage to have followed him, and was pleasantly surprised to instead see Frank.

Who looked…hot. Really hot. He was in a form fitting white v-neck t-shirt with the sleeves rolled showing off his tattoos, and the same shredded black jeans he always seemed to be wearing. His hair was slicked back into a sort of shaggy pompadour style which should have looked douchey but on Frank looked amazing, and he was wearing eyeliner way, _way_ better than Gerard ever could. He really wished he had more of his drink left because his mouth was super dry. “Hey,” was all he could think to say.

Frank shot him a grin and leaned in close. “Hey yourself. Did I just see you making out with some chick in there? Get it, dude.”

Gerard instantly flushed and flailed a hand at him. “Don’t even, man, she just tried to fuckin’ dose me with something. Hard pass. Do you want a drink? I’m gonna get another.”

“I’ll get it,” said Frank, and took Gerard’s empty glass from him. “Where’s Mikey? Still standing?”

“Not sure. He’s rolling,” Gerard explained. “I got him to drink some water earlier, but I haven’t seen him since.”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “Go, Mikey. I was gonna buy him a shot, but it sounds like he doesn’t need it, so I’ll buy you one instead.” He nudged Gerard toward the bar, and together they wove their way to the counter, where Frank ordered five shots of whiskey and passed one to Gerard, who stared at the other four in confusion until Frank explained, “Catching up. You got a head start, remember?”

“Four?” said Gerard, dumbfounded. “Are you gonna do those all at _once_?”

“It’s a party, right? Don’t worry, I’m a professional,” Frank replied, and winked at him, and picked up the first shot to tap against Gerard’s. “To your brother, wherever he is. Happy birthday!”

They knocked them back in unison; Gerard made a face after his. Whiskey wasn’t his thing, he thought it tasted like Sharpie, but Frank didn’t even bat an eye before he was reaching for the next glass. Gerard watched in astonishment as Frank went down the line without stopping until he’d pounded the fourth one, and flipped the glass upside down to slam on the bar top with a whoosh of breath. “I can’t believe you just did that,” said Gerard, half-laughing with amazement, and Frank turned to him with a glint in his eye.

“What did I tell you? Professional.” He passed the bartender some cash. Gerard shook his head, which felt much lighter all of a sudden, and dragged a hand through his hair. Jesus. That shouldn’t have been as much of a turn-on as it had been, but here he was, flustered like a teenager yet again. “By the way,” Frank said, right next to Gerard’s ear which nearly made him jump out of his skin, “your eye makeup looks awesome tonight.”

Well, that didn’t _help._ Gerard gave a breathy, high giggle. “So does yours. I didn’t think you’d be into eyeliner.”

Frank shrugged, shifting so his back was against the bar, and surveyed the room. “I bust it out for special occasions.” He smirked. “Plus, I figured you were gonna be wearing it and I didn’t want to be outdone.”

“Oh, okay,” said Gerard, while Frank laughed and bumped him with his shoulder. “Don’t worry, you for sure won this round. Which sucks, cause I spent, like, a super long time on this look.” He was starting to feel the shot, or maybe it was the accumulation of all the other drinks, too, but gravity was definitely coming a little unglued at the edges. Copying Frank’s posture, he settled his elbows against the counter lip for balance. His wrist brushed the top of Frank’s arm. “Did I already tell you that I really, really like your tattoos?”

“Not out loud, but. Pieced that one together without too much trouble,” Frank teased with a smile. “Seeing how you spent half your lunch hour just drawing the one.”

“You were _moving_,” Gerard accused, stabbing a finger into Frank’s bicep. “I coulda sketched it in five minutes, but you were, fucking, zinging around back there and that was the only one I could see, okay? Shut up!” he insisted, shoving at Frank, who was laughing at him again. “Stop - _being_ like that, God.”

“Being like what?” Frank challenged, raising his chin at him. 

“Being so cute,” said Gerard without thinking, and then heard what he said and instantly wanted to die. Frank said nothing at first, just grinned and glanced out toward the dance floor while Gerard searched the floor for holes that could swallow him. 

“See, I thought you might be drunk when I got here,” Frank began, and Gerard burst out into nervous giggles, “but now I know you are, because sober you would have exploded before those words made it out of your mouth.” He laughed when Gerard promptly buried his face in both hands, and pulled at his forearms. “No, don’t be embarrassed! Gerard, hey, look at me.” Gerard peeked through his fingers at him. Frank had sobered a little, but was still smiling, and held both of Gerard’s wrists in his hands. “It’s fine. I know I’m cute.”

Gerard made a tiny sound of distress into his palms. Frank gently dragged his hands away from his face until they were out by his sides, and then leaned up close. “Sorry,” he said, just barely loud enough to be heard over the music,“what I meant was, I think you’re cute too.” Gerard’s eyes snapped up to meet Frank’s from where he was staring down at his shoes. There was not enough space and also way too much space between them now. Gerard could have counted the tiny freckles scattered sparsely along the bridge of Frank’s nose. Frank widened his eyes at him from this too-close vantage point, and beamed at him. “Now we’re even! Take a deep breath.”

“Shut up,” Gerard said at that, unable to stop a small smile, and Frank squeezed his wrists before dropping them at last. “How are you not flat on your ass right now? You’re shorter than me and that many shots would have knocked me down, like, instantly.”

“Oh, it always takes a second. I dunno why. Give me another, like, ten minutes and I’ll be using you as a crutch,” Frank confessed, and they both cracked up, and while Gerard wasn’t looking one of Frank’s hands stole down to grab Gerard’s like he had at the Saturday show. Gerard’s breath caught in his throat. “So, do you wanna go look for Mikey? Or,” and Frank suddenly pulled Gerard toward him so he stumbled and collided with Frank’s front, “do you wanna dance with me for awhile?”

Holy shit holy shit holy shit this was really happening. Frank wanted to dance with him! But - wait. Gerard couldn’t dance. At all. He tried to articulate this to Frank, but all he got out was “Um, I can’t - ” before Frank was dragging him by the hand back into the crush of bodies on the dance floor. Oh fuck, this was _really happening. _He couldn’t just bail on Frank like he had with creepy pill girl, but he also _could not_ dance and he was about to totally disgrace himself here, plus he was drunk and that wasn’t gonna help at all - 

“Dude, I can, like, _hear _you panicking,” Frank shouted to him, grinning, and took Gerard’s other hand. “Relax! No one’s watching you, they’re all fucked up anyway.”

“It’s not them I care about,” Gerard complained, or tried to - Frank pulled his hands all the way forward and placed them on his waist, which was the most they’d ever been touching and it made Gerard’s brain sort of splutter for a second. He stared down at his fingers in disbelief while Frank reached up and held onto Gerard’s shoulders. “Frank - “

With an affectionate (Gerard hoped) eye roll, Frank pressed a finger to Gerard’s lips. “Don’t overthink it. Just dance.”

So he did. At first it was horrible - he was painfully self-conscious and so very aware of the fact that no matter how much he just tried to copy whatever Frank was doing, he was somehow doing it worse - but after awhile, and with the aide of the four drinks he’d had, he managed to relax enough to almost enjoy himself. At any rate, Frank was touching him, which was worth the discomfort. Frank was also getting drunker by the minute. It took Gerard some time to notice it, but after twenty minutes or so he realized he was basically propping Frank up while Frank moved against him. He wrapped more of his arms around Frank’s waist to support him, to which Frank responded by cracking up and pressing his nose into the curve of Gerard’s neck.

“What did I tell you?” he slurred, and Gerard felt the words buzz against his collarbone with a little shiver of delight. “Takes a lil’ bit. You okay?”

Gerard hid a smile in Frank’s hair. “Yeah, I’m pretty fuckin’ okay.”

He wasn’t sure how much longer they danced together before Frank suddenly pushed away from him - Gerard mourned the loss of contact for a split second, until Frank grabbed his hand again and all but pressed his mouth against Gerard’s ear to tell him, “Come with me, I wanna cigarette,” and he half-followed, half-carried Frank out one of the side doors to the outside of the building. Gerard hadn’t realized how fucking hot it was in the club until blessedly cool night air rushed over his face. He dragged the bottom hem of his t-shirt up to wipe the sweat off and smoothed damp hair back over the top of his head. Frank, having let go of his hand, was leaning up against the brick and struggling to wrestle his Camels out of his front jeans pocket. 

“Do you know how many times I’ve actually danced at a club?” Gerard asked him, as Frank wrenched the crushed pack free and shook two cigarettes out of it.

“Is the answer less than one?” Frank replied, and passed over one of the cigarettes. Gerard landed heavily on the wall next to him, and Frank immediately leaned in and hooked his chin over Gerard’s shoulder. “Like, how proud of myself should I be here?”

Gerard snorted, producing a lighter. “If I had a trophy, I would give it to you.” He lit Frank’s for him before his own. “This - “ he gestured to the building - “is not my thing. Way outta my wheelhouse.”

“Couldn’t tell.” Frank giggled when Gerard hip-checked him in response. “Okay, but from the way you were freaking out I thought you were gonna be hopeless. And you were great! So what were you afraid of?”

“The same fuckin’ thing I’m eternally afraid of!” Gerard exclaimed, nearly setting his hair on fire with the cigarette when he forgot he was holding it. “Looking stupid!”

Frank mock-pouted at him. “Awwww. You didn’t look stupid. In fact, I think I caught you having fun a couple times.” He took out his cigarette and stumbled a little ways away, shoving his Camels back into his pocket. Gerard watched him move with a small smile. The white t-shirt clung to him now, just a bit - Frank piled his hands on top of his head, and it rode up to reveal the tops of two swallows inked into his hipbones. Gerard found himself transfixed to them like he’d been to the jinx removal, although for an entirely different reason. The two of them were alone out here, he noted. “Tell me something,” Frank said suddenly, and Gerard blinked.

“Okay,” he said, flicking ash.

“Be honest.” Frank pursed his lips around his cigarette, fixing Gerard with a gaze so abruptly intense that Gerard froze. Was he in trouble or something? He just nodded and kept his expression open. “Are you happy?”

Gerard almost started laughing - _that_ was out of left fucking field, Jesus. He hadn’t counted on Frank to be a philosophical drunk. “That’s a pretty loaded question,” he said, kicking a foot up against the wall.

“I know. That’s why I asked it.” Frank raised his eyebrows at him, expectant. Gerard was suddenly struck by how much hotter Frank had gotten once he was sweaty, which was weird, because he didn’t usually find that kind of thing attractive. His eyeliner was smudged beneath his bottom lids and there was a light sheen to his skin under the floodlights - between that and the alcohol, Gerard was taken by a powerful need to pin him to the wall and kiss him. “Are you?”

His mouth was dry again. Was he doomed to be reduced to hormones and crazy impulses every single time he was in Frank’s presence? “I - I don’t know,” Gerard admitted with a shrug. “I guess I don’t think about it much. Recently? Probably not.” He took a last drag and crushed out his cigarette against the brick. 

Frank gave him a look Gerard wasn’t sure how to interpret. Was he…worried? He crossed the space between them, much more steadily than Gerard would have thought, and put both hands on Gerard’s shoulders to look him in the eye. “Why?”

“Uh.” Gerard stared back at him, thrown. When had this become so serious? “Frank - “

That seemed to break whatever spell Frank had fallen into - he squinted for a second at Gerard, and then his face split into a grin and he laughed, chin dropping to his chest. “Ah, shit. Sorry. That got heavy on me.” He dropped his cigarette on the cement between Gerard’s shoes and ground it out with his heel, then picked up the filter and pocketed it. “I just mean, like, I want you to be happy. You know?”

Gerard looked thoughtfully at him for a long moment, and then let it go. “I don’t think I’m totally miserable. Plus I decided to quit my job today, so that’ll help, I hope.”

“You what?” Frank’s head shot up so fast it knocked him off balance. Gerard reached out a hand to steady him. “You’re quitting Cartoon Network?”

He hadn’t actually fully committed to the idea before he’d said it out loud; now that it was out in the open, though, he felt so much suddenly lighter that he knew right then with certainty that yes, he was going to quit, even though he had no backup plan and no other kind of job prospects. Fuck them. Joe was right. Gerard huffed out a short laugh, and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Frank grabbed onto Gerard’s shoulders again with wide eyes. “Dude! Are you serious? This is _perfect!_” He took Gerard’s face between his hands and beamed at him. His palms were warm. Gerard had to fight to keep his eyes from slipping closed. 

“Why perfect?” asked Gerard. His voice came out huskier than intended.

“I wasn’t gonna tell you till later,” Frank continued, apparently unaware that Gerard had said anything. “But I’m leaving again. Tomorrow. I quit Keen Bean this morning.”

That shocked Gerard right out of his proximity-induced reverie. He blinked back at Frank, brow furrowed. “Leaving? What do you mean?”

“Like I told you. Traveling.” Frank busted up giggling at that for some reason - he tipped forward and pressed his forehead to Gerard’s collarbone before collecting himself. “It’s - it’s a long story, but. If you’re quitting, that means you can come!”

Gerard gave a bewildered grin, feeling lost. Hold on. So, Frank quit the coffee shop. He was leaving tomorrow to go traveling - and he wanted Gerard to come with him? Was this really happening? “Um, Frank. I haven’t actually quit yet."

“I know,” said Frank, his hands slipping down to cup under Gerard’s jaw. “But you’re gonna tomorrow, right?”

“I am?” Gerard didn’t know if he was having trouble keeping up because he was drunk or because Frank was touching him like this, but his head was swimming and he felt like he arrived ten seconds late to everything Frank said. He desperately wanted to kiss him. It was quickly becoming all he could focus on. He took a risk (for him) and placed his hands on Frank’s hips. “I mean, I guess I _could_, but I really should give two weeks.” 

“Fuck ‘em,” Frank declared, and Gerard laughed. “Seriously! You said, and I quote, that it was ‘fuckin’ depressing,’ so why would you give them two more weeks of your life? Just bail. And come with me instead.”

Gerard shook his head, grinning. “You said you’re leaving _tomorrow_, Frank. Unless you’re going to, like, Point Pleasant, I’m not gonna be ready.”

Frank pulled back a bit to scrutinize him. “If it helps, it’s not so much a _place_ I’m going to.” He shrugged. “You wouldn’t need to bring anything and I’d remember when we left, so you wouldn’t even be gone long. It could be ten minutes.” He slid close again, this time pressing all the way up against Gerard’s front, and Gerard couldn’t think about anything but the warmth of his body and all of the places they were touching. “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll get on the ferry with you at the normal time, come with you to the office, you can tell them you’re quitting, and we can just leave right after. No worries.”

“That’s insane,” Gerard told him, staring at his lip ring.

“It’s gonna be fine!” Frank insisted. “You hate that place anyway and you’ll love where we’re going. Don’t overthink it,” he told him, for the second time that night. “Just say yes.”

It was so, _so_ tempting. The way Frank pitched it, it sounded so easy - to say fuck it and walk away, just like Joe had, damn whatever consequence - but he’d known Frank for a weekend. Dropping everything to follow him wherever he was going (he still hadn’t actually said) was irresponsible at best. He also didn’t have the money to go anywhere, and he especially wouldn’t after quitting. Gerard hesitated, trying to conjure a response that wasn’t a hard “no,” and Frank stuck out his bottom lip at him.

“That’s overthinking it,” he said, and then Frank kissed him. And fuck, if his brain hadn’t been working before it sure as shit wasn’t working now - Gerard made an involuntary sound in the back of his throat and yanked Frank closer. He tasted like whiskey and smoke, and his thumbs were stroking the skin under Gerard’s jawbone, and his lip ring was just a little bit colder than his mouth in a way that made Gerard shudder. Just as Gerard was beginning to find his footing in the kiss, though, it was over. Frank leaned away, licked his lips, and grinned; Gerard watched him do it from under heavy lids. “Sometimes, Gee, you just gotta _do_ stuff,” he murmured, his mouth only a fraction of an inch from Gerard’s. He tried to close the gap, but Frank took a step back. “Say yes,” he said, when Gerard pouted at him. “Then I’ll let you kiss me again.”

“Frank,” Gerard whined, hooking his fingers into Frank’s belt loops in an attempt to keep him from getting any further away. “I can’t just - _leave_, Jesus, I’ve never been anywhere besides the East Coast and Florida once.”

“All the more reason to go,” Frank countered. “What, are you gonna spend your whole fuckin’ life in Jersey?”

Gerard huffed at him. “No,” he said, a little petulantly. “But…I don’t know, I’m not like you. And besides, you've run away from me twice now. What if you disappear on me wherever we'd be going?”

Frank tilted his head and considered him for a moment. His fingers trailed down Gerard’s neck to rest on his collarbones. “Alright,” he said at last, looking down at Gerard’s t-shirt. “How about this. Tomorrow morning, you go to the network, tell them you’re quitting. Then come back to my place, I’ll tell you all about the traveling, and you can decide if you want to go then.”

“Why not just tell me about it now?” said Gerard.

“Takes too long. And honestly? I’m fuckin’ drunk,” Frank replied, and they both giggled, and Frank darted in to press a kiss to the corner of Gerard’s jaw. “What do you say to that idea?”

Gerard thought it over. Quitting without notice made him uneasy, but it wasn’t like he was gonna keep working in cartoons; maybe burning that bridge wouldn’t be the end of the world. It did mean he wouldn’t have to work on Asshole Glenn’s project at all. That alone was a pretty huge motivator. He met Frank’s eye, smiled, and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I could do that.” 

Frank threw his hands into the air in triumph and whooped; Gerard laughed as Frank did a little spin in place, and caught him easily when he toppled over. “Fuck yeah! Dude, you won’t be sorry. Everything’s gonna be great.”

“You’re, like, the world’s most hands-on life coach,” Gerard told him, and started to move in for a second kiss until Frank flattened his hand against Gerard’s mouth. “I thought if I said yes you’d let me kiss you again!” he said, indignant, and also slightly muffled.

“That was before the terms changed,” Frank teased. “Now you just get to suffer.” With that, he pulled all the way away from Gerard except for his right hand, which Frank seized with abandon. “Come on, time for more dancing!”

“Oh, that is not fucking _fair,_” Gerard protested, but Frank was dragging him along and not listening anymore, the fucker, although once they got hit with a blast of humid club air and earsplitting music Frank did hang back to crowd himself against Gerard’s front, so that was nice.

“We should go try and find Mikey,” Gerard shouted in Frank’s ear. “Make sure he’s okay.”

Frank turned his head, and then gave a weird sort of full body snort and suddenly was doubled over laughing. Gerard, perplexed, looked in the same direction to figure out what was funny and literally clapped a hand over his mouth when he laid eyes on Mikey, who was honest-to-God dancing on a table. Like _full out_ dancing. With Sage. This was happening in basically the middle of the dance floor, which meant that one or both of them had to drag the fucking table away from the bar through all of those people, and then climb on top of it. Mikey was still wearing the sash, though the tiara had disappeared. “Holy fucking shit,” he said out loud, and Frank started laughing even harder. Gerard looked at him, bewildered. “Like…do I go get him?” he asked. “If it were me, I would want him to stop me.”

“Oh my fucking God, what I would do for an iPhone right now,” Frank wheezed, clutching Gerard’s arm for support. “He’s so goddamn lucky it’s 2001.”

“A what?” said Gerard, looking askance at Frank, who just cracked up anew, and flapped a hand at him.

“Dude, I think Mikey’s a goner,” he said once he’d caught his breath again. “Are you his ride home?”

Gerard shook his head. “His roommate Trevor was gonna take him back to their dorm, I think. But now I dunno, do you think I should do something about this?”

Frank looked back over to where Mikey was now shoving his tongue down Sage’s throat in front of the entire club. Gerard winced. “Uh, I’m gonna go with a hard no,” said Frank, and snickered. “It’s his birthday. Let the kid dance.”

“I guess,” Gerard said, and watched Mikey grab Sage’s ass with a crushing wave of secondhand embarrassment. He groaned aloud and covered his face with both hands. “Oh God, I can’t watch. Please can we get me another fucking drink?”

“I got a better idea,” Frank said in his ear. His fingers snaked up and around Gerard’s right wrist. “Why don’t we just bail and go back to my place? Cab fare’ll be cheap.”

Gerard pulled his hands away to stare at Frank, round-eyed in shock. Frank blinked back at him in confusion before the words seemed to sink in, and he burst out in that high-pitched giggle.

“Oh, uh. Not like that, sorry.” Gerard nodded in purported relief while despairing on the inside. More’s the pity. He very much wanted it to be like that. Maybe he could convey that a little more obviously somehow? “I mean, I’ve got alcohol at my apartment. And your brother isn’t groping some club dancer in my living room.” 

“Do not,” Gerard complained, slapping at Frank’s shoulder while Frank laughed at him. “Do not mention my brother and groping in the same sentence together ever a-fucking-gain, Frank, I mean it.”

Frank held up both hands in concession, grinning. “It’s true. Plus it’s quiet there, and I’ve got records in addition to booze, so.” He shrugged. “Beats whatever crap’s playing right now. Sounds like DDR on speed.”

Gerard pretended to consider the idea for a moment - he didn’t want to come off easy, after all, and Frank did say it wasn’t that kind of invitation - but Frank wanted him to come over, and that was unbelievable, holy shit. Gerard must have, like, a ton of good karma saved up. When he thought he’d carried on the masquerade long enough, he stuck his hands into his pockets and tried to be all cool and over it when he said, “Yeah, I’m pretty burned out on clubbing. Get me out of here. What kinda booze and what kinda records?”

“Shitty and awesome, respectively,” said Frank, and Gerard only caught a brief blur of movement before Frank pressed his lips to his cheek and tugged one of his hands free. “Let’s go before Mikey gets any luckier.”

Gerard had the idea to at least say goodbye to Mikey before he bailed, so he turned around and was greeted by the sight of Mikey plunging his hands down the front of Sage’s crop top, which, _yikes_, and he promptly spun on his heel and all but threw himself toward the front door, chanting “Nope, nope, nope, gross, bye Mikey,” with Frank in tow snickering all the way. Jesus. He knew he was supposed to look out for Mikey and all, but he had _limits. _And Mikey’d be fine. Trevor would get him back to school, Mikey wouldn’t go to class because he’d be puking instead, and the world would continue to turn.

He didn’t notice when, while waiting for a cab to turn up on the curb, Frank snuck his reset watch out of his pocket, peered down at the time scratched onto the inside cover with an almost pained look, and quietly clicked it shut again.


	7. Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So," Frank said, after a couple seconds passed. "What new and exciting mindfuck awaits me this time?"

To no one’s surprise, Frank woke up with a headache. This one came with a rising nausea that seemed to swirl like a waterspout up his spine from his stomach and into his throat. It tasted like whiskey. Frank made a small noise of malaise and pulled a face, eyes still closed. Awareness found him slower than the hangover did, cataloguing his surroundings - he was in bed, it smelled like his own. That was nice. Everything else was awful, though. Most of last night after the fourth shot went down was a colorful smear across his memory and he didn’t remember getting here at all. 

Someone nudged his shoulder. “Hey, Frank? Are you awake?”

He grumbled at them, and started to roll over but the whiskey-flavored nausea spiked and he stopped. His stomach gave a threatening flip, then settled. He let out a long, pathetic groan into the pillow.

The person trying to rouse him laughed under their breath. “Yeah, me too. You don’t have to get up.” The mattress dipped as they sat on the edge of the bed. “I just wanted to let you know I’m heading out.”

“Wha?” Frank said at last, his throat coated in sleep, and fought his eyelids apart. His vision was blurry and the room was very bright - fucking east-facing windows in a bedroom, who was the asshole responsible for that? - so it took a couple seconds for the person to swim into focus. Frank’s stomach did another violent turn when he realized it was Gerard. Oh fuck. Oh, _fuck_. “Gerard. You’re - oh, shit,” he said suddenly, and with a horrible jolt he sprung upright and clamped a hand over his mouth to force down the wave of sickness that wanted to escape. It was too bright. I.e., not early morning. Had he - was it - he scrambled to extricate himself from the covers.

“Um,” said Gerard, watching him with a stricken expression. He’d washed his face sometime between now and last night; only the barest trace of black clung to his eyelashes. “If you’re freaking out because I stayed over, it’s okay, I slept on the couch. We didn’t - nothing happened.”

Frank staggered out of the other side of the bed and landed on his knees. Heart in his mouth, he dug through the jeans he’d worn the night before - the reset watch tumbled out of the back pocket, and he scooped it up before shoving himself into the jeans. Key, key, where the fuck was his key ring - “Do you see a key ring around anywhere? What time is it?” He ran around to the bedside drawer.

Gerard just sort of gawked at him before glancing down at his watch. “It’s 8:37. Uh. Is your flight today or something? From the way you talked about it, I assumed it was later - “

“Fuck fuck _fuck_,” Frank chanted, snatching up his denim jacket and shaking it until his key ring jingled, and he jammed the drawer key into the nightstand and drew out his Them phone. “We have to go right the fuck now, Gerard.”

“Is that a fucking _gun?_” Gerard screeched, and Frank slammed the drawer shut and whirled around.

“No time for questions, sorry, just come with me,” and he grabbed Gerard’s arm to haul him to his feet and shove him out of the bedroom. Half-formed plans raced through his head - what was the quickest way to get to the ferry terminal? Gerard’s car was still at the club, or wherever he’d left it. They could make it if they sprinted the whole way, but would Gerard be up for that? Would _he? _Adrenaline had tamped down the nausea but if he tried running anywhere he would definitely puke. They didn’t have time to wait for a cab. Fuck, where was Uber when you needed it? He stumbled when Gerard came to an abrupt halt in front of him. “What - come on, Gerard, we’re late!”

“What the fuck is going on, Frank?” Gerard demanded, eyes wide. “Why do you have a gun in your nightstand? What are we late _for?”_

Frank flung his hands up in exasperation. “The ferry! You have to be on it and we’re gonna fucking miss it if we don’t go now!” He started to hustle Gerard toward the front door, but changed his mind at the last second and pushed him back into the bedroom. The fire escape would be faster, straight shot down the sidewalk. He got out in front of Gerard to haul the window open and climbed through it; when he turned to take Gerard’s hand and help him out, he found Gerard standing at the windowsill with his arms crossed, pissed. “What?”

“_What?” _Gerard all but shouted at him. “Are you shitting me? Give me an actual fucking answer!”

“I did! Ferry! You! Late!” Frank gestured wildly toward the fire escape. “What part of that was unclear?”

Gerard gaped at him, incensed. “Nothing about this is clear! We went from sitting on your floor playing Dead Kennedys and shooting the shit last night, to you having a fucking panic attack and _climbing onto the fire escape_ to get me on a ferry I wasn’t even planning to take because I’m not going to work today - “

“Yes you are,” Frank interrupted, and impatiently held out his hand. “You’re gonna quit today and you’re gonna spit in Stephen’s ugly face like you said you wanted to last night. But most importantly, you’re going to get on the fucking ferry because it’s already,” he yanked Gerard’s wrist toward him to check his watch, “eight-fucking-forty and oh fuck,” he said, realizing with a start. “Oh fuck, it’s eight forty.”

“Yeah. So I’d be late even if I was planning to go in. I was gonna call in on my way to my car,” Gerard said flatly, and shook his head. “Look, if you really have to leave today, then fine. Hit me up when you get back from wherever, I guess. But I’m fucking hungover and I just want to go back to sleep - “

Frank wasn’t listening; his heart was beating too fast. The first plane hit at 8:46 and the second at 9:03 and they were at least ten minutes from the terminal. They were going to miss it. Gerard would miss the boat and he wouldn’t see the planes hit and the timeline was going to start unraveling again and They’d keep Frank bound for another fucking thousand years and he would never see Jamia again. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t risk losing her. So what were his options? One hand dove into his pocket for his reset watch on instinct, and as he wrapped his fingers around it and clenched tight enough for it to hurt, Frank got an idea. It was something he’d thought about before, how to transport an unbound person with a reset watch - he had some theories, but he’d never tried them. For one, it was 100% a violation of Their rules and two, accidentally binding someone to Them was the worst sin Frank could think to commit against a person. But maybe, if he didn’t - that is, if he didn’t actually use the _watch_, and just himself, since he was bound to the watch - 

It was worth a shot, and also, it was all he had. With a grim sort of determination, Frank traded the watch in his pocket for his key ring. On it was a Swiss army knife with a small, sharp blade on one arm - Frank popped this out, and with his tongue between his teeth, stabbed it into the pad of his thumb.

“Give me your hand,” he told Gerard without looking up, interrupting whatever tear Gerard was on now. He transferred the knife to his bleeding hand and held the other out expectantly.

“What are you doing?” Gerard said, sounding totally freaked. “Why are you - hey!” He flinched when Frank rolled his eyes and snatched Gerard’s arm to yank his hand toward him. He gave the tiny blade a quick wipe against his jeans, and before Gerard could pull away or protest, plunged it into the tip of Gerard’s index finger like a lancet. Gerard startled - “ow, what the fuck!” - and Frank quickly squeezed their bloody fingers together for a few seconds until Gerard shoved him off again. “Fucking - stop it, Jesus Christ!”

“Don’t stick your finger in your mouth, or it might not take,” Frank instructed, already spinning dials on his watch. “And before you fire any more questions at me, please use context clues and figure out that we do not have the fucking time to hash this out now.” He drew a sudden blank on the seconds for Keen Bean’s latitude coordinates and swore, ripping his Them phone out of his pocket to find the note he’d made of it.

“You just made a fucking zero-explanation blood pact with me, you fucking freak, you better believe we’re gonna hash _something_ out!” Gerard insisted, an octave above his usual speaking voice. Frank glanced up for a split second between checking the watch coordinates against his notes - Gerard was clutching his hand to his chest and _glowering_ at him like Frank had cut it off at the wrist, the drama queen. “Tell me what’s going on, now, or I swear I’ll run out of this apartment screaming bloody murder - “

Frank’s hand shot out and snared Gerard’s shirtfront, smearing blood against the fabric, and Frank leaned in and nearly growled at him, “Dumb and blind obedience for the next thirty seconds, thanks. Listen closely,” and he kept Gerard’s shirt bunched up in his grasp while he finished setting the dials and popped the crown up with his thumb. “If this works - and I have no idea if it will or not, but I’m out of time and ideas - then it’s gonna make you feel like you got on the fucking Tower of Terror without a seatbelt, and you might throw up. I did my first couple times. And actually, I might today,” he admitted with a strained laugh. “It can be pretty disorienting even if you don’t puke, so just - try not to freak out, okay? It won’t hurt. I think. I’ve never done it like this before.”

Gerard goggled at him, pissed off and panicked in equal measure. The leftover eye makeup gave the expression a strikingly delicate quality. “Done what?” he squeaked.

Frank pulled him over the sill onto the fire escape, and Gerard went, stumbling a little. “Traveling. I may have omitted some details on what kind, exactly.” He eyed the second hand on the quarter-sized watch face, waiting for it to come back around to twelve. “On the count of three, take a deep breath and hold it.”

“Um, Frank,” said Gerard, a note of alarm raising his pitch.

“One.”

“Seriously, Frank, if this is what I think it is - “

“Two,” Frank continued, his thumb poised over the top of the crown, watching it _tick tick tick_ past eleven.

“Are we about to fucking _time travel?_” Gerard finally shrilled, his voice cracking on the last word, and Frank seized his hand.

“Three,” he shouted, and jammed the crown back down with a silent prayer. The fire escape and the apartment fell away, and he concentrated on clutching tight to Gerard’s hand in case something happened, if he’d guessed wrong and the makeshift bonding didn’t take. He pitched forward as the back room of Keen Bean whirled into view and landed hard on both knees; Gerard’s hand wrenched out of his grasp, and Frank’s arms shot out on instinct to catch him before he hit the floor facefirst. The reset watch clattered a few feet away under the dish sink. He knelt on the tile with his eyes squeezed shut for a long, terrible second as his stomach climbed into his throat, and he retched, but didn’t puke. Taking a few forced slow breaths through his mouth, he rose unsteadily to his feet and dragged clammy hands over his face. “Fuck,” he panted, and shook his head. “Gerard, are you okay?”

He turned. To his relief (and honestly surprise), Gerard had made it through intact with him. To his dismay, he was crumpled on the ground, motionless. Frank swore and surged forward, dropping to his knees, and coughed when burnt-fuse smell blasted up his nose. “Gerard,” he rasped, and reached for his shoulder. “Come on, Gee, wake up. Wake - oh, Jesus,” he breathed in horror when he rolled Gerard onto his side and saw there was blood pouring out of his mouth. “Oh, shit. No no no no no,” and he struggled to get Gerard sitting upright, propping him up against his shoulder. God, he looked so pale. Frank slapped lightly at Gerard’s cheek. “Hey, you made it, man. You time traveled! We’re here, you just have to wake up. Please wake up.” He pressed two fingers to Gerard’s throat - he had a pulse, but it was weak, and Frank grimaced. Oh, this was very bad.

It got worse when Frank heard the telltale whoosh behind him of someone else arriving via reset watch, and the smell amplified so much he started coughing again. He wrapped both arms around Gerard protectively, and didn’t turn to see who’d come for him. Not like it mattered. He never saw faces.

“Leave him,” whoever it was commanded. Frank pressed his mouth to the top of Gerard’s head.

“Fuck off,” he snapped, swallowing hard. “He needs help, I’m not going anywhere until he gets it.”

“This timeline is now fractured because of your little blood sharing stunt, Frank,” said a different voice. Oh, great, They came in pairs now. “There are people coming to fix your fuck-up. They’ll make sure he’s taken care of.” Hands closed around Frank’s shoulders and wrenched him backward. Frank let out a yell, twisting away, but the other one swooped in and flung an arm around Frank’s neck. They dragged him up to his feet; Gerard slumped over, and Frank fought against the limbs restraining him with all his might, screaming Gerard’s name over and over until one of Them managed to pick up Frank’s reset watch from under the sink. They stuffed it into their robes, and then stepped in front of Frank, blocking his view of Gerard’s limp form collapsed on the floor. “Shut _up_,” they snarled, and the last thing Frank saw before they knocked him out was Gerard’s blood beginning to pool on the white tile at their feet.

* * *

No one noticed the brief shiver in spacetime that September 11th. (Save, of course, for Them.) How the linear flow of it paused, stagnating to a slow halt to allow an extra few hours to slip into the stream. It picked up again with little fuss; in all, Gerard gained six hours, twenty-four minutes, and nine seconds over the rest of his timeline, inserted into the gaps between just four minutes of normally flowing time. It was long enough to correct the massive internal hemorrhaging he’d suffered, and all the memories of what had happened to him from six o’clock that morning to his traumatic arrival at the coffee shop. Careful adjustments made around the Frank-and-Gerard shaped timeline fracture led to Gerard dozing off on one of the outside benches on the 8:30 am ferry out of Union City, clutching a paper cup of coffee from the terminal kiosk that was slowly tilting out of his hand.

He jerked awake when hot coffee spilled out of the sip top of his travel cup and onto his knee. Fuck. There went his last pair of clean work pants. He brushed ineffectually at the stain like that would do anything, and sighed, slumping back against the bench. God, he was so fucking tired. Not as hungover as he might have expected, since he and Frank had killed most of a cheap bottle of oily vodka together when they got back to Frank’s apartment. He did have a little bit of a headache. But mostly he was exhausted. Against all odds, he’d woken up of his own volition on Frank’s couch at about six-thirty, just as the sky was starting to get light. He’d tried to wake Frank up to tell him he was leaving, but Frank had made a grumpy sound at him and rolled away, so Gerard let him be and made the long walk back to his car alone.

Truth be told, he’d considered quitting over the phone and going back to sleep in his own bed. But it wasn’t like this was a meaningless high school job - he had a desk to clear out, and stuff to take off the walls in his cube. Loose ends to tie up. He had to quit in person. So he dutifully went home, changed into work clothes, and got on the ferry like a good productive citizen. He yawned and checked his watch. 8:46. He was gonna be on time to quit, at least. Stephen would appreciate it. Maybe he’d call him buddy one last time. Gerard snorted at the thought.

His eyelids were drooping again when a faint crash and a woman’s shriek made him snap to attention. Alarmed, he looked up and saw a woman with a hand clapped over her mouth, staring over the rail at Manhattan in horror. He tracked her gaze to the World Trade Center, which had suddenly gone up in smoke. “Holy shit,” he said, startled, and the woman whirled to look at him in panic.

“It was a plane,” she gasped, the words falling out of her mouth in a jumble, and it took Gerard a second to process what he’d heard because what? A plane? “Like a - a passenger plane, it just crashed into the building!”

Other people were taking notice, getting up from benches and rushing over to the rail; a murmur was growing among the crowd, building up to a low roar of confusion and distress. Gerard and the woman exchanged a look of dread, and the woman’s eyes filled with tears as she turned back to the city skyline. “Oh my god, there must be so many people in there,” she whispered.

Gerard numbly got to his feet and stood beside her. She fretted with a little braided rope around her neck; she was dressed like any other office worker, but her necklace was a chunk of some sort of crystal netted into a pendant. Her fingers closed around it, and she let out a sob. Gerard sort of automatically reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t know why. Staring wide-eyed at the column rising from the North Tower, he swallowed hard and tried to breathe through a tense band of fear that had wound around his chest.

Details came piecemeal. They emerged from the few phone calls that got through, a few portable radios; they thought it was an accident, that something had happened to the pilots, or the instruments. At one point everyone noticed they hadn’t moved in several minutes, and then the ferry captain got on the intercom and announced that they were waiting for the Port Authority to tell them if they could dock on the Manhattan side or if they’d have to turn around. Gerard learned the woman’s name was Diane. She lived in Caldwell and worked for Ernst & Young. He told her he was an artist when she asked, and she told him about her youngest daughter Madeline who liked to paint and wanted to move to Paris when she grew up. She’d gotten the crystal from her oldest daughter Charlotte, who was in school at UC Berkeley and apparently going through something of a New Age phase. 

“She gave my husband and I these, and then made us sit out in the yard with her while she balanced our chakras,” Diane told him, laughing a little despite the tears that hadn’t stopped running down her cheeks. “So glad we’re footing a sixty-thousand dollar education so she can get wasted in a meadow while Jupiter’s in retrograde.”

She tried to call her husband Jack a few times on her cell phone - he worked from home - but nothing was going through by then. It was during one of these that Gerard, watching the World Trade Center in a sort of daze, realized with a swooping horror that the different-colored dots emerging from the smoke every now and again were people. People, trapped on the floors above the crash, falling - jumping - to their deaths. The radio confirmed this not long after, and Gerard almost threw up. He clutched at the railing with both hands and forced himself to take several deep breaths, his vision blurry and his throat burning. Christ. Diane gave him a hug, and didn’t mind that he started smoking a much-needed cigarette next to her even though she didn’t smoke. 

She hugged him again when the second plane hit the South Tower not thirty seconds later, and he instantly burst into tears. 

* * *

Frank had no idea where They took him, but it was dark and there were cactus. Some kind of desert. Middle of fuck-off nowhere desert, judging by _how_ dark and the fact that there were so many stars visible overhead, they didn’t seem real. Not that Frank got to spend much time stargazing. They frogmarched him down a wild path he couldn’t fucking see and he had to stop periodically to puke - between getting cold-cocked, the hangover, and the exercise, his body was hitting the wall. He ran out of content to purge after too long, and spent an agonizing eternity dry-heaving into the brush before the two chucklefucks who’d brought him here gave him some water, muttering something to each other Frank couldn’t be assed to understand. After what felt to Frank like hours, they finally stopped at the edge of a clearing he knew had been created specifically for this.

Over the course of the last roughly seven years since Frank had fallen in with Them, he’d been subjected to two official punishment hearings. They always took place at night, in some remote bassackwards location that for all Frank knew could have been on different planets, and he always came out of them significantly worse for the wear both physically and generally. This one would be bad. He’d made his peace with that during the hike. The part that made his pulse shoot up as soon as he saw five of Them waiting at the center of the clearing, hands crossed in front of them, was not knowing what flavor of bad. They knew all his weak spots. Which one would they exploit?

“Evening, all,” he called, injecting as much fake cheer into his voice as he could muster, just because he knew it annoyed the shit out of Them. “How is everyone? Good? Family’s good? Glad you all could make it out tonight.”

Silence. Frank ambled his way over to the group, hands in his pockets, pasting an easy smile on his face while in his chest his heart beat like a punk song. Don’t let them see you’re scared, right? He stopped a few paces away and rolled up onto the balls of his feet, raising his eyebrows expectantly. “So,” he said, after a couple seconds passed. “What new and exciting mindfuck awaits me this time?”

The center figure stepped forward. Frank stared at the void where their face would be, smile disappearing into a hard line. “Mr. Iero,” they said, and Frank scoffed, leaning away for a moment.

“Oh, now it’s a _formal_ thing? Come on, guys. Let’s skip to the part where you beat my face in and arrange for every friend I’ve ever made to forget my existence, or whatever it is.” 

They all looked at each other, which Frank found both bizarre and hilarious since They couldn’t even _see_ each other through the robes. Probably. Could they? “Have it your way, I guess,” said the central figure, and kicked Frank’s feet out from under him. With a yelp, he landed painfully on his left knee and both palms collided into some seriously sharp rocks. “I’ll give you the short version. Frank, you fucked up.”

“Yeah,” said Frank dryly, and sat back on his haunches. One of the rocks had embedded in his skin - he drew it out and flung it into the desert. “What else is new.”

They had formed a tighter circle around him when he went down; Frank found himself surrounded by black robes. “To recap,” the same figure continued, “you used your chrono-rigged phone to contact an unauthorized, unbound civilian in another timeline. You made a false and frankly dangerous blood bond with the subject of your repair, and then used your reset watch to transport him, and he went into fucking cardiac arrest from the shock.”

Frank blanched. Cardiac arrest? Was Gerard _dead_? Had he killed the only fucking person in the world who’d been decent to him in the last five fucking years? He couldn’t get the words out and ask the question, though, and the figure kept talking.

“Furthermore, by using your reset watch to interfere in the repair process, you damaged the timeline and required a dam placed around the entire event to prevent the fracture from spreading. Congratulations! You fucked up so badly, we had to _stop time_ to fix it. How you manage to get dressed and breathe by yourself is a goddamn mystery to us all, Iero.”

“Is he dead?” Frank demanded, ignoring all of that. He looked up with his heart in his mouth. “Gerard, is he dead?”

He could have sworn he heard the figure roll their eyes. “Obviously he isn’t dead, or you’d be so redundant your _atoms_ would be scattered, you moron.”

Not even the threat of atomization could stem the sweet relief that flooded Frank then. Gerard was okay. He hadn’t accidentally killed him. Fuck, he should never have tried that stupid bonding.

“Now for the thrilling conclusion to this saga. Because you interfered in the repair process and didn’t just _do it_ the way you were supposed to, you’re now part of the timeline. Permanently. Hope you liked the early 2000s, because now you’re gonna live them all over again!”

Frank’s head shot up, respite stymied by incredulity. “Part of - part of _what?_ Are you shitting me?”

“I shit you not,” said the figure, gravely. “You can no longer return to your original timeline, lest you create a catastrophic temporal anomaly and cause both to collapse in on themselves. Don’t make that face. You created this for yourself.”

Frank struggled to his feet, anger rushing hot and thick into his veins. “You fucking promised me! One more repair, and I was done! Let go of me!” he yelled, when two of Them rushed forward to take hold of his arms. “Take me back to Jamia right fucking now!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the figure retorted, and crossed their arms. “Even if I wanted to, that timeline has been erased. Seeing as how you couldn’t follow a rule if your life depended on it, we saved ourselves the future headache and eliminated the temptation. Welcome to your new reality.”

Erased. The word flashed red across Frank’s mind’s eye. Jamia was gone. They’d taken her, and everything else Frank knew along with her. His past, his future, the pedestrian, _normal_ life he and Jamia could have built together - all of it was gone. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t accept that this was happening. Nearly six hundred event repairs, seven years of isolation and constant back-and-forth through time, having first his music career and then his parents stolen from him, and now They’d taken _everything_. “You,” he choked, blinding fury frothing on his tongue. “You took her. From me.”

The figure heaved a sigh, spreading their hands. “There was also the issue of you failing to fulfill the terms of your agreement with Us. We were pretty clear on what your end of the bargain was. You could go back to your original timeline and be with whatshername - “

“Jamia,” Frank spat.

“ - _if and only if_ you repaired every resulting fracture to precisely our specifications. All you had to do was follow directions, you idiot, but you couldn’t fucking manage that much, and now you pay the price.” Frank strained toward the figure with a strangled cry of rage, but the two holding his arms held him in place no matter how hard he thrashed. “Which brings me to my next point. This whole fiasco obviously has compounding temporal ramifications. Since the original terms of your agreement have…changed,” and Frank snarled, “your new assignment is to assist Us in fixing all of the schisms you’ve created.”

Frank threw all his weight against his constraints and at last broke free of them. He charged at the figure, screaming; they ducked, and the rest of Them closed in to bring him down to the ground again, pinning him face first into the dust. He kept struggling, kept screaming even as sand filled his mouth and jagged rocks scraped at his skin. The figure squatted beside his head.

“You can fight this all you want, Frank,” they said, patiently. “But all of it is your fault, not Ours. We didn’t make you come to Us and We sure as shit didn’t make you fuck it up this much. Hopefully you’ve learned something from this.” They got back to their feet, and the many pairs of hands keeping Frank on the ground suddenly hauled him back to his feet. “I want to make something abundantly fucking clear before we send you back, Iero. This is the last time We’re willing to let you make our jobs hard. You screw up again, and you _will_ be made redundant. Any other interference, any more guerrilla blood binding, any repair that isn’t followed to the fucking letter, you’re toast. Got it?”

Frank shook his head as best he could with one of Them gripping the back of his neck. “I’m not doing any more fucking work for you bastards,” Frank coughed, voice ragged. “Fuck you. I’m done. You can kill me if you want.”

The figure roughly patted his cheek. “As much pleasure as that would bring me, sunshine, I’m not allowed. Neither are you, for that matter, so don’t go getting any ideas about that gun in your nightstand.” All but one of Them backed off then, while the one held vice-like onto Frank’s left arm, and Frank saw his reset watch emerge out of one of Their robes. They passed it off to the central figure, who started entering coordinates into it. 

“You’re going back to New Jersey, a week after the World Trade Center attacks,” they informed him while they worked. “Documentation’s been arranged for you - driver’s license, birth certificate, Social Security card, school records, old family photos, all the good stuff. You’ll need to come up with a personal history. It’ll be checked for inconsistencies or unauthorized information.” Frank watched them spin dials on his watch with a sort of numb dread. “From now on, you’re locked into the linear chronology of this timeline, which means if it happened after September 18th, 2001, it doesn’t exist yet. You are not to exploit or divulge any knowledge of future events, and they might not happen anyway, who knows? It’s a whole new world.” They yanked up the crown, grabbed Frank’s free hand, and slapped his reset watch into his palm. “A comprehensive explanation of rules and guidelines is in your paperwork. Read them, memorize them, burn ‘em to ash. You’ll keep your chrono-rigged phone for official communications. Any questions?”

Frank stared dully down at his watch. He’d be returning to his drafty, terrible apartment at two in the morning. The time engraved on the inside cover was still there; he ran his thumb over the scratches. “What happens if I do kill myself?” he said, voice thick.

The figure shrugged. “You’ve seen _Groundhog Day?_ Like that, but for literal eternity. Fun side effect of your blood bond. I’d avoid it.” They nodded to the watch. The one holding his arm let go and joined back up with the other black robes. “Chop chop. You’ve got plenty of homework ahead of you.”

“Isn’t there supposed to be a physical component to this? I still have all my teeth,” Frank pointed out flatly. 

“Well, We were gonna skip it just this once, considering We had to erase your girlfriend from the spacetime continuum. But if you really want to bleed some more, a physical component could be arranged.” The semicircle of Them took a hopeful step in toward him.

Frank looked around at Them, sneered, and pushed the crown back in.


	8. Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "An - an out?" Gerard managed after most of the shock had passed. "An out from what?"
> 
> "From me." Frank sucked his lower lip into his mouth and looked down at the floor. "From everything I'm about to tell you, because Gerard, if you decide that you want to hear what I'm gonna say, there's no going back. This conversation could get you killed."

Gerard shuffled back and forth in front of Frank’s apartment door, gnawing on his thumbnail and debating whether or not to knock. It was Wednesday, just after dark. He’d spent the day at Ray Toro’s practice space in Hoboken workshopping the songs they’d written together, after Gerard called him on impulse Saturday morning to ask if he wanted to be in a band and _not_ play drums. The material they had so far sounded pretty good - raw for sure, but it felt good - and today Ray had brought Matt, who’d just left a band and laid down some drums for them that didn’t even really need tweaking. After talking it over, they agreed that Gerard should bring Mikey to the next session (despite the fact that Mikey hadn’t actually touched the bass guitar in a hot minute) because all the bassists Ray and Matt knew were on tour or else committed to other projects. They wanted to bring in another guitarist, too, but when Gerard played them the rough cut of Turnstiles, Ray made a politely dismayed face while Matt just outright laughed at him. So that was out. Apparently Matt had something of a makeshift recording studio set up in his attic and wanted to record demos of the three songs they had so far; he thought if they had an EP in hand, they had a shot at getting it to a label.

Gerard was mostly amazed this was happening at all. He’d written Turnstiles in about twenty minutes on Wednesday and now there were two, potentially three other people who wanted to be part of what he’d made. Total 180 from his foray into animation. Maybe Mikey was right. Maybe they were onto something really cool here.

Frank’s apartment was on his way back to Route 7, and while he intended to go straight to Mikey’s bookstore and wait for his shift to end, he found himself turning off the highway and hanging a left over the bridge to Frank’s complex. Why he’d decided to come back was a mystery to even him; the first time, last Tuesday, Frank was already gone and he’d taken that to mean Frank had left for his trip after all, without him. Which stung. True, he hadn’t _really _committed to going, but Frank had now ditched him three times in four days and Mikey’s comment about dodging a bullet was starting to hit closer to home. He supposed he was coming back to stand up for himself. Maybe. That was assuming Frank was even still around. Flights all over the country had been grounded and canceled till last Thursday - maybe he’d tried to leave, and been delayed? Gerard reached up to knock, hesitated, and frowned at the handle. But what if he was in a car?

The door swung inward while he pondered this latest possibility. Behind it was Frank, who looked like he hadn’t slept since the last time Gerard saw him. Rings of deep purple were inked under both bloodshot eyes, his hair shot out in eighty different directions, and there was a long streak of what looked like blue pen smeared from his temple to the corner of his jaw. He raised his eyebrows at Gerard in exhausted anticipation. “You gonna come in, or are you gonna keep wearing out the hall carpet?” he asked by way of greeting. Even his voice sounded tired, scratchy and flat.

“Uh,” said Gerard. He gripped his bag strap uncertainly. “How did you know I - “

“Heard your footsteps. Been watching from the peephole.” Well, that was embarrassing. It was too late to retreat, so he made to go in. Frank stepped aside to let him through the door, and shut it behind him, leaning heavily against the back of it for several seconds before he turned around again. The apartment was hazy with cigarette smoke; Gerard could see it curling around the ceiling in the low lamplight. “So,” Frank continued. “Where should we start? No, wait.” He held up a finger while he crossed to his paisley-patterned couch, which was littered with papers covered in scribbly blue handwriting. There was more stuff in here now than there had been last week, Gerard noticed. Frank had gotten a coffee table. There was a shallow blue glass ashtray on it overflowing with spent filters, and more papers, these with complicated spiraling diagrams on them. Frank mentioned something about having just moved in when Gerard asked him why it was so sparse on Monday night - maybe that’s what he’d been doing instead of traveling, getting furniture and stuff. Getting settled.

Why did he feel so nervous being here?

“You’re probably gonna remember something different than I am,” Frank was saying, and Gerard started paying attention again. God, Frank seemed so…what was the word? It was more than exhausted. Heavy? Depressed? His hoodie and sweatpants were so huge they made him look gaunt. Gerard wanted to ask what was wrong, but remembered he was here to prove he had a spine, and didn’t. “Tell me your version of events first. It’ll help me narrow down what I have to explain, if you decide you want me to. I know that doesn’t make sense on its face,” he sighed wearily, when Gerard opened his mouth to tell him pretty much that. “Just…humor me, alright? What happened on last Tuesday morning?”

Gerard blinked at him, a little incredulous. “Other than the obvious?”

Frank sunk down onto the only clear area of the couch and shoved all of his papers into a haphazard pile on the opposite side. “As in what happened _before_ a crew of dickhead lunatics killed thousands of people, yes. Walk me through your morning.” He gestured to the now-available cushion beside him.

This was not going to plan. Not that Gerard really had a plan, but. Frank was definitely going off-script from the conversation Gerard wanted to have, the one where he demanded Frank stop fucking with him and decide whether he was into him or not because hello, Gerard was pretty patient but he wasn’t a pushover, okay, he had some shred of self-esteem. But Frank just kept looking at him, waiting, and well, Frank had been thoroughly wasted Monday night. Maybe he blacked out. Maybe he’d assumed that Gerard leaving without saying goodbye meant he wasn’t interested in going, and Gerard would get an apology for the miscommunication at the end. He decided to play along for now, and sat guardedly in the space Frank had made for him, still clutching his bag. With an impatient eye roll, Frank lifted the strap over Gerard’s head and dropped the bag on the floor.

“You don’t need the bag to talk,” he said when Gerard shot him a miffed look. “Chill out.”

Gerard huffed a little. “Fine. Um.” He crossed his arms over his middle, feeling oddly exposed. “I woke up around dawn. You were still asleep and you didn’t really wake up when I tried to tell you I was on my way out, so I just left.” Frank’s face twisted, and he fell back into the couch corner with an even more drained expression, if that was possible. Gerard didn’t know what that meant, so he stopped talking until Frank waved a hand at him to continue. “We didn’t - nothing happened, just so you know. If you were worried. I just helped you get into bed and then came out here and slept on the couch.”

“I know,” said Frank, eyes closed. “I would remember if we had hooked up.”

“Oh.” Gerard scratched the baby hairs at the nape of his neck, his face warm. “Do you want me to…” Frank nodded. Gerard cleared his throat. “Before - uh - everything, I went home and changed for work. And then I drove to the ferry terminal, got on the boat, and watched a whole bunch of people die for two hours until they finally let us dock in Union City again.” His throat closed up of its own accord. He shut his eyes and waited out the fresh wave of tears - God, he was so sick of crying over this every ten minutes, but he couldn’t help it, talking about it sent him straight back to the railing again. “That’s it,” he croaked.

He felt the cushion shift, and then Frank was wrapping both arms around him and leaning his chin on top of Gerard’s head. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured, and just like that Gerard lost it. He clung to the back of Frank’s hoodie with both hands and sobbed for what felt like an hour, and Frank let him, even through Gerard was definitely soaking his hoodie with tears and snot. So much for standing up for himself. He was gonna get “WELCOME” tattooed across his forehead after this, to cement his status as a fucking doormat. Frank rubbed his back in little circles and didn’t say anything further until Gerard had quieted down a little, hiccuping against Frank’s collar. “I’m so sorry you had to see that, Gee, I really am. I wish things could have been different.”

“Where were you?” Gerard asked thickly, leaning back at last to look at him. “I came back, when they let us off, and you were gone. Did you try to leave for your trip?”

Frank pressed his mouth into a narrow line, his expression clouding over, and shook his head. He let go of the hug. “No, I didn’t. Gerard, there’s…” He sighed, scrubbing at his eyes with one hand. Gerard felt a small pang of dread well up in his gut. “We need to talk. Or, actually, I need to talk, and you need to decide if you want to listen and if you even believe me. Which is gonna be a fuck of a lot more challenging since your Tuesday was so different than mine,” he muttered, with a surprising amount of venom, and got to his feet. Gerard watched him go with his brow furrowed, already lost. This didn’t seem like a rejection type of we-need-to-talk speech. It didn’t sound like Frank was talking about Gerard at all, really. Gerard wiped at his face and tried to seem composed enough to handle whatever was coming next. Frank paced back and forth in front of the couch for a few moments, raking his hands through his hair and muttering under his breath; every now and again he picked up a paper from the coffee table to glance it over and toss it onto the floor when he was finished.

“Okay,” he said at last, clapping his hands together and spinning to face Gerard again. “This is where I’m going to offer you an out. No more questions, end of discussion, you walk out of here scot-free and don’t have to put up with any more of my shit ever again.”

Gerard, blindsided, could only stare blankly at him with his mouth open. Frank waited, arms by his sides and his face clear of any sort of expression at all. “An - an out?” he managed after most of the shock had passed. “An out from what?”

“From me.” Frank sucked his lower lip into his mouth and looked down at the floor. “From everything I’m about to tell you, because Gerard, if you decide that you want to hear what I’m gonna say, there’s no going back. This conversation could get you killed.”

Gerard barked out a laugh, because seriously? Did Frank expect him to believe this wasn’t bullshit? This was a fucking comic book script, and a tired one at that. But Frank didn’t let up. He still wasn’t looking at Gerard, his whole body tense and unmoving, staring down at the rug with so much stark _sorrow_ on his face that a chill went up Gerard’s spine.

Oh. He wasn’t joking.

Holy shit.

“Frank,” said Gerard, as evenly as he could. “What’s going on?”

Frank pressed the heels of his palms against his brow bone and blew out a troubled breath. “There is a lot you don’t know about me. And - and I had to do a lot of fucking legwork to make this conversation possible, but I think I owe you for fucking with your life the past week.”

Gerard tried on a grin. “Um. If it’s any consolation, I didn’t mind all that much.”

Frank looked at him then, hands falling away from his face, and the somber, slightly terrified expression softened into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Dude, you don’t even remember how much I fucked with it. Careful how much slack you cut me.” He pressed his palms together beneath his chin in a facsimile of a prayer. “So, here’s the deal. If you stay, I’ll tell you everything I can. About me, the traveling I talked about, and what really happened on Tuesday after you woke up. And yes,” he said, when Gerard wrinkled his brow, “it is different than the version of events in your memory. By a long shot. Anyway.” He perched on the edge of the coffee table, facing Gerard. Their knees weren’t quite touching. “The other option, like I said, is that you walk away right now and forget we ever met. Honestly, Gerard, that’s the safer option.” He reached out and took both of Gerard’s hands, meeting his eye with his mouth set in a grim line. “The people behind all this are dangerous. Seriously fucking dangerous. They can do stuff to you on a plane of awful you’ve never imagined, and They will if they get the chance.”

Gerard swallowed, his mouth dry. “I thought you said you weren’t in the Mob.”  


There was a protracted moment where he thought Frank might yell at him. His cheeks turned a bit pink and he opened his mouth to say something, but then he scoffed and cracked the first real smile Gerard had seen him wear since he’d opened the door. “You fuckin’ dweeb. There are _other_ dangerous organizations in the world that aren’t the Mob. Christ.” He let go of Gerard’s hands then, and twisted his fingers together in his lap. “Look, I’m trying to level with you. The fact that you met me at all means there’s a giant target painted on your back. Ever since I got involved with Them, the people I’ve been close to - bad things happen to them, in the end. I don’t want that to happen to you and I cannot guarantee that it won’t.”

“Who’s Them?” Gerard asked. Frank just shook his head at him.

“I can’t tell you anything else until you give me a clear yes or no that you understand what you’re getting into. People have died just because they knew me,” said Frank, and his voice was so wracked with emotion that Gerard felt a responding ache in his chest. “What I do, who I work for…no one should get mixed up in it. The only reason I’m willing to tell you anything about it is because you already are. I’m sorry,” he added, looking up mournfully through his lashes. “You never had a choice.”

Gerard leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. Fuck. Suddenly his life was a thousand times weirder. He ran his tongue over his teeth, considering. “Can you tell me how I’m involved if I decide to leave?”

Frank shook his head.

“That’s what I figured.” Gerard took a measured breath through his nose. “And my only options are to know everything and maybe die, or know nothing and never see you again.”

Frank nodded, staring down at his tattooed knuckles. “All or nothing is sort of Their thing.”

Gerard gave a slow nod, and rested his chin on his fingers. All of his rational faculties told him he should run. A shadowy organization who killed people just for knowing about them, Frank’s blanket refusal to discuss anything at all unless Gerard went all in, the fact that there was apparently a real Tuesday and a fake Tuesday - if Gerard had any sense, he would leave. Mikey would tell him to leave. But then, if he really was unwittingly involved in some insane conspiracy where things could happen to him that he didn’t even remember…didn’t he deserve to know why? Of all the people in all the world to target, why him? He was nothing special. He told Frank as much, who rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be stupid. Clearly that isn’t the case, or neither of us would be here right now.” He shifted forward. “You were the last link in a chain of seemingly unrelated people making seemingly unrelated decisions, years and miles apart. I don’t care how humdrum you think you are, that makes you pretty fuckin’ special.”

“I was a what?” said Gerard, and shit, he could feel his face doing that stupid gaping thing it did when he got really, really interested in something - that clinched it. Threat of death or no, he had to know at least that much. He grinned despite the situation and spread his hands, flopping back against the couch. “Alright. Do I have to sign a waiver or something?”

Frank gazed at him, steady and doleful. “You really want to do this? After I’ve been trying to tell you not to the entire time?” Gerard gave a single, somber nod. Frank looked up at the ceiling for a moment, and then abruptly burst out in half-hysterical giggling; he buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with laughter, and got back to his feet still grinning. “God damn it. Okay, you crazy motherfucker. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He turned and walked into the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” Gerard called after him.

“I picked up some gin in case you made the stupid choice,” said Frank, and his voice sounded like it was coming from inside the fridge. “You’re gonna want to be drunk for this. Trust me.”

* * *

“There was a flyer in the quad,” Frank began, after most of the small bottle was gone and they each had a cigarette burning - Gerard’s, because Frank had smoked all of his own. They sat at opposite ends of the couch facing each other, Gerard with his legs curled up under him and Frank’s splayed across the cushions. Frank wasn’t looking at him - he was staring up at the ceiling, one arm behind his head, the other extended over the edge of the couch, cigarette dangling from his fingertips. “They said it was a research study. There’s always some fuckin’ study going at Rutgers, but this one got me cause it was paid. Room, board, and paid travel.”

“Sounds like one of those sex trafficking things from the news,” said Gerard. He had the almost empty gin bottle resting on his hip, with his free hand curled around the neck.

Frank nodded. “It was stupid to even take it seriously, but my dad and I had just gotten into this huge fight about school. I failed too many classes in the spring and they put me on academic probation.” He pulled a what-can-you-do face and took a drag. “It was my own fault. Spent all my time at band practice and turned in exactly nothing except my music composition homework. Like I told you before, school wasn’t my thing at all.” He stretched his arm over to the coffee table to tap his cigarette on the ashtray. “He told me if I didn’t get my shit together I was on my own for rent and everything, and I didn’t work enough hours at the coffee shop to cover all my bills, so I was kind of freaking out and that flyer seemed like a godsend.”

Gerard grimaced. “I think that’s how they get the trafficking victims, too.”  
  
Frank kicked at him. “Did I ask for commentary? Jesus.” He slung his elbow over his eyes. “Anyway. The flyer said to just show up at a room in the medical school research tower, so I went over after my English class one day. The last thing I remember is grabbing the door handle. I guess They must have knocked me out in the room.”

“And no one noticed?” said Gerard, sort of stunned. At SVA it had seemed like you couldn’t take a piss without triplicate witnesses. Someone getting knocked the fuck out would have been school wide knowledge in, like, an hour.

“They snatched me from the Six Hell Slaughter show without you noticing,” Frank pointed out. “It’s a specialty of Theirs.” He rested his non-smoking hand on his chest. “I woke up in a weird sort of place. Not quite a dungeon, cause it was huge, but stone and torches all over the place and They had me strapped to a slab. That’s how They do the blood bond. Not that I remember any of that part.” He shuddered. “I’m glad I don’t. Sounds fuckin’ macabre, let me tell you.”

Gerard’s jaw hung somewhere around his belly button. “I - sorry, _what?_ Blood bond?”

Frank gave him a weird look, but it cleared, and he slapped his palm to his forehead. “Shit, right, I forgot to explain. Sorry. I keep forgetting They wiped Tuesday for you.” He propped his cigarette in the ashtray and pushed himself upright with his elbows; once he was sitting up again, he folded his hands in his lap. “So, from the top. I’m a time traveler.”

Gerard pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, yeah, totally. That’s the next logical step from blood bond in a dungeon. Time travel. For sure.” He took a swig out of the gin bottle. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Man, I wish.” Frank reached for his cigarette and relit it. “And I already told you it wasn’t a dungeon.”

“Frank!” Gerard chucked a pillow at him, and Frank laughed. “So not the important thing! _Time travel?_ That’s fucking impossible.”

Frank shrugged, grinning. “_You_ time traveled, dude! But I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Here, I’ll show you.” He reached into his kangaroo pocket and produced what looked to Gerard like an old brass pocket watch, tarnished and battered. “This is a reset watch. Open it up.” He tossed it to Gerard, who didn’t catch it because hi, drunk and not a sports person, and it hit him in the chest before landing in his lap. Frank laughed at him as he grumbled, tossed his filter into the ashtray, and grabbed for it. Up close, the watch was even more woebegone - scratches and dents pockmarked its surface, grime sunk into each little crevice. The front cover had a sigil etched on it. It looked sort of like an anchor, or a medieval Norse drawing of a ship.

“What does this mean?” he asked, tracing the lines with his thumb.

“That’s my bond sigil.” Frank hugged his knees to his chest. “It’s supposed to represent my soul.”

Gerard balked, and glanced up at him wide-eyed. “Holy shit.” He fumbled with the cover for a moment before it sprung open. The inside was almost as beat up as the outside, and decidedly unlike a regular pocket watch: the watch face itself was only the size of a quarter, and instead of twelve hours it had twenty-four. It was set near the top, and underneath it was a miniature toggle switch. Below that were three rows of small rectangular windows displaying numbers like on a padlock, arranged in a way that looked familiar but he wasn’t sure how. He flicked the toggle switch experimentally; more than a dozen tiny dials popped out of the sides of the watch. “Whoa.” When he pushed it back, they disappeared again. “Okay, that’s fuckin’ steampunk. Cool. How does it work?”

Frank moved across the cushions on his knees, cigarette dangling at the corner of his mouth, and leaned over Gerard to point to the top two rows of numbers. “So, these windows? They’re for coordinates. They use the DMS format because They’ve been around for fuckin’ eons, I dunno.” He flipped the toggle switch again. “The dials correspond to the windows. Top row’s latitude, bottom’s longitude. That’s for setting where you want to go in space.” He gestured to the coin-sized watch face, and then to another dial offset to the right of the crown. “This is for when in time. Like, time of day. And down here,” he said, pointing with his pinky to the last row of windows, “is the year. Anno domini system. I don’t know if other watches are different, but mine only goes up to 19,999 AD.” Frank shrugged, settling back on his calves. “Maybe the universe explodes that year. Fuck if I know, I’ve never been.”

“Why not?”

“Not allowed.” He took the gin from Gerard and drank a long swallow, making a face when he put the bottle down again. “Man, I don’t know how you drink this stuff. Tastes like deep throating a pine tree.”

Gerard tried not to choke on his own tongue at the vivid image _that_ produced in his head, Jesus. He couldn’t keep from blushing, though, and did his best to hide it by squinting at the reset watch and resolutely not looking up at Frank. “So, uh. How do you…go?” He tried to gesture with his hands but mostly just kind of flailed. “What’s the traveling part?”

Frank blew out a cloud of smoke. “You set the dials and everything, and then you pull up on the crown to activate the…link, I guess? Uh, the literal mechanics of it are way above my pay grade. I never bothered to find out what they were. Once the link is live, you push the crown back in, and then you just kind of show up wherever you’re going. Like teleporting.” He waved a hand. “The link, that’s where the blood bond comes in. The easiest way to think of it is like a horcrux. You know, Harry Potter?”

“Oh, uhhh.” Gerard thought back to the most recent book. “Wait. What’s it called?”

“A -shit, hang on, that one’s not for another few years.” Frank rolled his eyes at himself. “Fuckin’ time travel, man. So, basically, my soul? Got split in two when They blood bound me. I kept one half. The other half is inside of the watch and bound to the infinite complexities of spacetime. Where it goes, I go. So. I’m kind of one with the universe in that way.” He giggled. “Namaste and all that shit.”

Gerard gaped at him, and then down at the watch in his hands, and then very gingerly, clicked the cover shut and set it down on the coffee table. An involuntary full body shudder ran through him. “Frank,” he said, and couldn’t think of anything else to say. He shoved his hands into his hair and let out a shaky breath instead. “God.”

“It’s okay,” said Frank, sounding taken aback. “Hey, don’t freak out. Gerard.” He crushed out his cigarette and reached for Gerard’s elbows to pull his hands away from his head.

“You’re not kidding,” Gerard said hoarsely, as Frank dropped his arms by his sides. “You really use this thing to time travel. And it has _half of your fucking soul_ in it.” He shivered again saying it. Holy shit. Time travel was real and involved giving up part of your soul to do it. And from the way Frank had talked about it, it had happened against Frank’s will. Knocked him out in a classroom and tied him up in a dungeon and - suddenly everything he wanted to yell at Frank for an hour ago seemed totally, stupidly immaterial. Holy _shit. _The pleasant gin-related buzz he had been feeling morphed unpleasantly into a spinny, head-rushing sensation.

Frank rubbed his hands up and down Gerard’s upper arms like he was trying to warm them up. “I told you getting drunk would make it easier.” He offered a tight smile. “Just so we’re clear, everything you’ve heard about having your soul dissevered by umbral forces is mostly bullshit. I’m still the same jackass I was before They got involved. And as far as I know, I’m not, like, damned.”

Gerard rushed forward and threw both his arms around Frank’s middle, which seemed to stun Frank a little - he froze with his arms hovering behind Gerard’s back. Gerard took a couple ragged breaths with his cheek pressed up against Frank’s chest. “Fuck,” he managed, squeezing his eyes shut. “You - They did that to you while you - “

Frank awkwardly patted Gerard’s shoulder blade. “Yeah,” he said, and it sounded a bit strangled. “Awake would have been a thousand times worse, though.”

“But They didn’t ask you. They just did it.” Gerard’s arms tightened around Frank. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Okay, maybe that’s enough explanation for one night,” said Frank, and then fully returned the hug at last, tucking his chin over Gerard’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was that big a deal, but I’ve had a lot of time to get used to it, I guess.”

Gerard forced himself to take a deep, steadying breath through his nose and calm down. Now that he knew this wasn’t some elaborate prank, his mind was suddenly burning with questions - how long had Frank been doing this, what time was he really from, why had he come here - and he wanted them answered. No time for going ballistic when there was a whole new world to explore. “I’m fine,” he said, and was pleased when his voice came out sounding more normal. “Sorry. Just wasn’t expecting - that. Um.” He let go of Frank then, and felt around for the gin bottle, fallen into a crack between the cushions. “Is it okay if I ask you some stuff?”

Frank raised his eyebrows at him, skeptical. “Are you sure you can deal with it right now?”

“Yes.” Gerard polished off the gin and put on what he hoped was a resolute face. “I can now.”

Frank studied him a few moments longer, doubt writ large into every part of him, but eventually he sighed and held up his hands in surrender. “Alright. If you start getting overwhelmed again, though, I’m pulling the plug.” He tucked himself back into the opposite corner of the couch.

Gerard chewed thoughtfully on his index finger while he considered where to begin. “You keep saying Them when you talk about this organization,” he said at last. “Do They have a name, or is it like, capital-T Them?”

“If They do, They haven’t told me and I never asked. It makes no difference.” Frank cracked his knuckles. “Until today, I never talked about Them with anyone.”

“Oh.” Gerard couldn’t help but smile a little at that. “I’m that special, huh?”

Frank smiled back. “Told you.” He tipped his head back against the arm of the couch and folded his hands over his diaphragm. “Plus, like I said, They involved you against your will, and that’s bullshit. I think you deserve to know what happened and why.”

Gerard could understand why Frank would have strong feelings about that. He blinked away a sudden image of Frank, unconscious and covered in blood, strapped to an altar. “So…who are They? What’s the point of binding souls to time travel watches?”

Frank took a breath, and started intoning an answer that sounded well-rehearsed. “They are the reason humanity is allowed to have free will. The forward progression of time is fragile, and time itself is in flux due to the capricious nature of human impulse. The three principles behind what They do are one,” he held up a finger, “certain events must happen, two,” another finger, “they must happen in the correct order, and three,” a third, “they must happen at the correct points in their respective timelines.” His hand flopped back onto his stomach. “When one of those three things is in jeopardy, They send someone to fix it, i.e., me. Ostensibly there are more people like me, but I’ve never met them, or at least if I have I didn’t know it. They’re big on secrecy.” He scoffed. “Obviously.”

Gerard placed the empty gin bottle on the coffee table beside the ashtray. “When you say fix it…”

“Like, okay.” Frank sat up a little. “So you make a ton of different decisions all day, right? All of those choices have an impact on the timeline you’re in. Let’s say you decided to leave a little early for work and get coffee. You go the usual way, everything’s fine and dandy. You get your coffee, and while you’re sitting drinking it, someone comes in and talks about an accident they saw on their way over. Happened at an intersection you always go through to get to the ferry terminal. And you realize as you’re listening, that if you’d left at the normal time, it probably would’ve been you in that accident instead.” Frank spread his hands. “That’s an event chain. Now let’s say you were _supposed _to be in that accident for some reason. If that’s the case, then that event chain needs repair, because you made the wrong choice. So someone like me would show up in your timeline, figure out how to make you just late enough to be at that intersection when the accident happens, and make sure the accident itself occurs.”

Gerard looked at Frank quizzically. “Why does something like that _need_ to happen?”

Frank shrugged. “Beats me. I’m just the repair guy. All I know is, if the thing doesn’t happen right, the timeline gets fucked and They have to either get rid of it or do a shit ton of damage control.”

Fair enough. He didn’t pretend to understand Cartoon Network’s company politics when he worked there. Gerard crossed his arms and pursed his mouth in mock disapproval. “You cause a lot of car accidents?”

Frank laughed. “Actually, no. But I have done a few here and there.” He tongued his lip ring thoughtfully, nudging it back and forth. “Most of the time it’s stuff that seems totally inconsequential at first blush. Making sure someone gets on a plane on time, or misses it. Getting their credit card back to them after they forgot it someplace. Introducing them to someone they have to meet, or keeping them away from someone they shouldn’t even see.” His mouth twitched a little. “I’ve done more than one repair that was just giving a dude a condom.”

Gerard’s jaw dropped and he let out a shocked laugh. “Seriously?”

“Oh yeah.” Frank giggled and shifted, bending his knees and leaning them against the back of the couch. “One time I broke into a girl’s apartment and left one on her pillow like the fuckin’ Prophylactic Fairy. It worked, at any rate. No babies were made that night.” He held two thumbs up sarcastically and smirked. “Call me the Anti-Stork.”

“Condom delivery is a pretty weird reason to take half of someone’s soul,” said Gerard unthinkingly, and screwed up his face in response, bashing his palm against his forehead. “Ugh, fuck, please forget I said that.”

Frank snorted, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth, and shook his head. “No, that’s valid. I’ve had a similar thought many, many times over the years.” He shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket. “There’s big stuff, too, just not as often. Yours was a big one.”

Gerard tilted his head at him. “Mine? I had a - a thingie?” That was intelligent. He winced.

“Repair, and yes. I was supposed to make sure you got onto the ferry on Tuesday morning.” Frank looked uncomfortable, suddenly. He wasn’t looking at Gerard anymore, gazing off at something behind Gerard’s head instead. “I, uh. I fucked it up big time.”

“Why was I supposed to…” He trailed off as the penny dropped. Oh. The attacks. Diane screaming and waking him up. Watching the second plane hit. “Jesus. You mean I was _supposed_ to watch the fucking planes crash?”

Frank nodded unhappily. “I don’t know why. They never tell me why. All I knew was you had to be on the ferry to see it. I’m sorry.”

Gerard didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, it wasn’t Frank’s fault, per se. But he could have used a fucking _warning_ or something, anything, so he could’ve - fuck, he didn’t know, closed his eyes at the right times? But that was stupid. Frank would have had to tell him about the crashes, and then Gerard definitely wouldn’t have gotten on the fucking boat. He got up from the couch, staggering when the gin made him unsteady, and paced a few steps away, hands in his hair again. “Hang on,” he said, spinning around when a thought occurred to him. “You said you fucked it up, but I was there. How does that make it a fuck-up?”

Frank had pushed himself upright and was sitting cross-legged, watching Gerard anxiously. “You weren’t there the first time. That’s the part you don’t remember, the part They fixed.” He swallowed and looked down at his folded hands. “That morning, you came in to wake me up and it was already too late to get to the terminal by any regular method, so I - um - I used the watch to take us both.”

Gerard stared at him. “Can you do that?”

“No,” Frank admitted. He still wouldn’t look up. “The way a watch works - you have to be bound to it for it to take you anywhere. But I didn’t take your soul,” he added in a rush of breath, when Gerard recoiled in horror. “I promise, Gerard, I would never, ever do that to you. Cross my fucking heart.”

“Jesus, Frank!” Gerard clutched his head in both hands, feeling sick. “What did you do? What _happened?”_

Frank shot to his feet, palms held up in supplication. “Finger prick. That’s all it was. I did a rudimentary blood pact, like kids do, you know?” He looked at Gerard with wide, pleading eyes. “Just mingling our blood together long enough for a one-way trip. That was the theory, anyway. In practice, it kind of - well,” and he sighed, arms dropping like his strings had been cut. “It didn’t work very well. You went, but since you weren’t actually bound to the link, it, um.” He stopped, fidgeting.

Gerard raised his eyebrows. “It what?” he pressed, his hands stacked on top of his head.

Frank, upset, kind of pursed his mouth and looked up at the ceiling. “You went into cardiac arrest,” he blurted, and Gerard made a sort of dismayed exclamatory sound and spun in place. “I’m sorry, Gee, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what would happen and I was freaking out - “

“I fucking _died_ from time traveling wrong and _you’re_ the one who was fucking freaking out?” Gerard all but shrieked, pacing in a frantic back-and-forth behind the coffee table. “What the fuck, Frank! What were you thinking?”

“I'm sorry!” Frank gestured wildly with both arms. “I’m sorry, I was just so close to being done with the repair and - and going home, and seeing Jamia - “ He froze, and clamped a hand over his mouth. His eyes filled with tears, and he abruptly turned away from Gerard, sinking back onto the edge of the couch cushion.

“Jamia?” Gerard repeated, stopping short. He felt like a bucket of cold water had just been dumped over his head. “Who’s Jamia?”

Frank said nothing. He buried his face in his hands and made a ragged sound that might have been a sob. All of the anger went out of Gerard at once, replaced by a numb sort of alarm; he took a few tentative steps forward, watching Frank uneasily.

“Was she the girl you saw at breakfast?” he tried. For a long second he thought Frank wasn’t going to answer him, but then he shook his head tightly and hunched in on himself. Gerard perched on the edge of the coffee table, hesitant. “Frank, talk to me.”

“She’s gone,” Frank bit out suddenly, dragging his hands away. “She’s gone, and it’s my fault. They erased my original timeline when I used my watch to take you with me.” He wiped furiously under his eyes with his sleeve. “Remember when I told you bad things happen to people I get close to? It’s _always_ my fucking fault.”

Gerard found himself at a loss. He wasn’t sure what it meant to erase a timeline, and asking for an explanation would probably make things worse, but he did understand “gone.” Yeah, it was pretty fucked up for Frank to just force him into blood magic powered time travel like that - he had a reason, though, and it wasn’t like Gerard even remembered what happened anyway. Maybe he should consider himself lucky. He was sort of starting to wish he had given more thought to jumping into this world. “Um.” He twisted his fingers together nervously. “I…I don’t want to sound like an asshole here. But. Was she…?”

Frank closed his eyes, and another few tears rolled down his cheeks. “Don’t. Please,” he said, quiet and miserable. “Gerard, I just lost her. I’ll - I’ll tell you about her someday, but not now. I can’t.”

Gerard bit his lip and looked away as sick realization sunk into his core. So Frank did have a girlfriend after all. One in another time, one who no longer existed. Mikey was right all along - this was a disaster waiting to happen. “So this whole time,” he began, heat rising in his cheeks, “you had a girl in a different - year, or whatever, and you kissed me at Mikey’s party anyway."

Frank’s head shot up at that. He stared at Gerard like a deer in the headlights, his whole body gone rigid. “I did what?”

“You kissed me at Mikey’s party,” Gerard repeated, and now he was pissed. He fixed Frank with a cold stare. “Outside. You were trying to convince me to go traveling with you. Did you forget that part too?”

Frank looked like he was going to throw up, or start hyperventilating. His eyes were huge and terrified, and for some reason, that just made Gerard more furious. “I - I don’t remember,” he stammered. “Gerard, I’m sorry, I was - “

“You were what? _Drunk_?” Gerard snapped, and stood up again. “That’s not a fucking excuse! You don’t just forget about your girlfriend when you’re wasted. Did you think you could get away with it because you were leaving? Because she was in another timeline and she’d never find out? That is so fucking _gross_, Frank, I can’t believe you!”

“No, I wasn’t thinking that_, _I wasn’t thinking anything!” Frank pressed both hands to his forehead and groaned in frustration. “I know that’s not an excuse and I’m the biggest douchebag in the world - “

“Yeah,” said Gerard icily, snatching his bag off the floor. “That’s an apt description. I have a lot of other descriptions I could give you, but I’m gonna save my breath. I’m leaving. See you.” He was still pretty buzzed, but fuck it - he could wait it out in the car, what the fuck ever, but he was absolutely not gonna sit and listen to any more of Frank’s shit. He made for the door.

Frank scrambled up from the couch in a flurry of papers falling to the floor. “Wait, Gerard, let me explain - “ He grabbed Gerard’s shoulder, and that was the last fucking straw. Gerard threw him off and spun violently to face him.

“I did! I let you explain at me for close to an hour, you _asshole_, and I learned that not only did you almost kill me, but you cheated on your girlfriend with me and then got her fucking disappeared by the goddamn Time Police!” By the end Gerard was flailing his arms around like a complete lunatic; he forced himself to put them down again, and splayed his fingers in a gesture of finality. “Spare me any more fucking explanation, please, lest the carnage get worse. Good night, Frank.” He turned back to the door and flung it open to storm into the hall. Instead, he ran straight into a short figure wearing all-black robes and the world’s creepiest featureless mask. “Whoa, what in the fuck - “

“Hi, Gerard. Sorry about this,” said the figure. Frank shouted Gerard’s name in a panic, and the next thing Gerard knew, a cloth-covered fist slammed into his jaw, and he crumpled to his knees. Frank’s apartment floor swirled up to meet him just before his vision dimmed, and then went black.


	9. Negotiation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank closed his eyes. "The version of the world I came from is gone. Everyone I know, everything I experienced, it's all only in my head now."
> 
> Gerard sucked in a breath. "Oh, Jesus."

“This is getting old, Frank,” said the figure, shaking out their hand as they stepped over Gerard into Frank’s apartment. Frank stood stuck in the center of the living room. He’d known it was only a matter of time before They arrived, and he’d prepared for it, but why knock Gerard out? What did They want with him? He wanted to run over and make sure Gerard was alright, but the figure was between them now, arms crossed over their chest. “Less than twenty-four hours and We already have to intervene _again_? What the fuck is your damage?”

Frank, still eyeing Gerard, took a slow step back toward the couch. The figure mirrored him. “Can’t keep my mouth shut, I guess. You didn’t have to drop him like that.”

“He wasn’t gonna go quietly.” They edged forward, and Frank deliberately stumbled to take a hard seat on the cushions, his right hand diving between the seat and the back. His fingers brushed his gun handle - he wrapped them around it slowly, but didn’t withdraw it yet. “Not after you provided such a ringing endorsement for Us. Gosh, We had no idea you were so _bitter_.”

“What do you want with him?” Frank demanded.

The figure scoffed, and spread their arms in an _isn’t-it-obvious_ gesture. “You think We get all Our recruits from research studies? There’s about to be a Frank-shaped vacancy and he’s the natural fit for it. With that beautiful explanation you just provided him, We might be able to skip that annoying post-binding Q&A and get straight to work.”

Frank shot back to his feet so fast, it made him a little dizzy. He managed to get the pistol up and aimed before the figure could get any closer. “You can’t have him,” he said. His heart pounded behind his ears. They’d already taken Jamia - even if They were making him redundant, Frank wasn’t going to let Them ruin someone else’s life because of him. Least of all Gerard. He flipped off the safety and stared the figure down. 

They slowly raised their arms, palms out, and heaved a sigh. “Frank. Come on. Again? Need I remind you how well this turned out the last time?”

“Leave him the fuck alone,” Frank insisted tightly. He made his way around the coffee table, clutching the pistol with both hands. He wasn’t even sure if guns would work against these fuckers - he’d never been sure if They were human or not, or if They could die. Damn if he wasn’t going to try, though. “Whatever you want with me, you leave him out of it.”

“You are not in a position to negotiate right now, Iero.”

“Neither are you,” Frank shot back, and waved the gun at them. “I made him a promise and I’ll fucking do what I have to in order to keep it. You aren’t gonna stop me.”

The figure flung their arms wide in a gesture of incredulity. “Holy shit, you really want to do this again,” they said, and laughed. “Do you have some kind of fucking complex or what? Trying to save these people from _fate?_ Have you tried getting attached to someone who _isn’t_ destined for tragedy? Not to fucking mention how much deep shit you’re in with Us over the last time. Which, again, happened _less than twenty-four hours ago!”_

“I’m not gonna let You fuckers do to him what You did to me!” Frank yelled, his voice breaking. “He’s not _like_ me, he’s got people who care about him and he has a future, god damn it, and however it ends up he deserves to be there for it!”

“Does he?” the figure said suddenly, and dropped their arms. Frank renewed his grip on the gun as they stepped toward him. “You know where it ends up. Think he deserves to be there for that, too? Dying alone in a parking lot because he couldn’t cope?”

Shit. That made Frank hesitate. Of course Gerard didn’t deserve to die like that, Jesus, no one fucking did. But between that and having his soul split, indentured into servitude to Them for the rest of his life, ending up in the same shitty positions Frank found himself in over and over again - which was worse? Gerard’s face flashed into his mind just then, pale and horrified as he looked down at Frank’s reset watch, and the way his whole body shook when he lunged at Frank for that hug…no. No, he couldn’t let Gerard go through that. There was his answer, then. Frank gave a slow nod.

The figure halted their encroaching course, and cocked their head at him. “That event is fixed, you know. Gerard Way is going to die July 25th, 2004, from a drug overdose. There’s nothing you can do about that, Frank. It’s going to happen.”

Frank swallowed. “It’s better than this.”

The figure considered him for a long, silent moment - at least that’s what Frank thought they were doing, with the mask it was impossible to know for certain - and then they let out a protracted sigh. “Frank Iero, you are the biggest pain in the ass I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with."

He grinned, viperous, and said nothing.

“You want him to get there that bad? Fine.” They pulled out an identical phone to the one They’d given Frank, and started typing on it. Which was weird to see. He’d always sort of assumed that these henchmen-type robed guys had Their own Them phones, but usually They were too busy beating the shit out of him to use them in front of him. “I assume what you want is a formal contract negotiation.”

“Yep.” He was already dreading it, but he’d promised Gerard. And he was tired of breaking his promises.

The figure spent a long few moments having an apparent back-and-forth on the phone, while Frank fought the urge to wipe his palms down the sides of his pajama pants. Negotiations weren’t guaranteed, and they were always more than you bargained for in the end. Frank had only ever made one once, and until now he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to make one ever again. They seemed to come to an agreement with Them after an extended silence, and they nodded once before the phone disappeared inside their robes again. The featureless mask turned up to face him. “We’ll assign you guardianship over Gerard’s timeline, meaning you are personally responsible for ensuring that he not only makes it to July 25th, but that he dies that day, too. And that very same day, at the same fucking time, We’re making you redundant. You’ll go together. Like Bonnie and Clyde. Isn’t that sweet?”

Frank’s first impulse was to chuck the gun onto the rug and lunge for the fucker’s _throat,_ but he white-knuckled through the blinding fury and bit down so hard on his tongue he tasted iron instead. He’d asked for this, after all. It would have to do for now.

“Naturally you’ll still be expected to take on the repairs necessary to fix all your other fuck-ups,” they continued. “But don’t worry. We’ll have someone to swing in for you whenever you’re gone."

“How thoughtful,” Frank gritted out. “So it’s this, or you drag him off for a binding right now?”

“Yep. You know the drill.” Their tone took on a sacramental edge, and Frank instinctively tensed up. “Frank Anthony Iero the Third, do you accept this negotiation in terms as presented to you?”

Frank set his jaw, glanced over at Gerard again, and gave a terse nod. “I accept.”

“Super.” They produced a short scroll of ancient-looking parchment, and a small, brass-handled knife Frank had seen before, the last time he’d made a negotiation like this. He closed his eyes for a split second in resignation, and then transferred the pistol to his left hand, holding out his right hand palm-up and looking pointedly away at the floor. The figure closed the gap between them in a swirl of movement; they grabbed his wrist, and then there was the quick sting of the blade slicing a shallow straight line across his palm before they pressed the parchment scroll against the cut. “Now bound in blood, it shall be done,” they intoned, and Frank suppressed a shudder.

“Now bound in blood,” he echoed, dully, and snatched his hand away the instant they let him go. A strange, thrumming energy flickered out from the cut down his arm and through the rest of his body like a strike of lightning - it passed, and when Frank examined his palm again, the cut was gone. He flexed his hand a couple times and grimaced. “God, that’s so fucking creepy.”

The figure rolled the scroll into a tight little tube, and it too vanished. They crossed their arms, the blank mask studying Frank impassively again. “So. Obviously that little lover’s quarrel didn’t do much to set up your new position as his chronological babysitter. You wanna do something to fix that?”

Frank tucked his tongue into his gums, safetying the gun and setting it onto the coffee table. “Yeah, but I don’t need Your help, thanks. I need to get him to a hospital. You motherfuckers should start bringing doctors with You if You’re gonna run around concussing people like that.” He crossed the room to crouch beside Gerard. There was blood smeared on the inside of his lips, but his jaw didn’t look broken - he was gonna have a bitch of a headache, though, and a huge bruise. Frank reached out and brushed Gerard’s bangs out of his face. 

“You could stop the concussion from happening in the first place,” the figure pointed out, sounding bored. “Like, I dunno, if you could time travel somehow and do that whole ‘oops-I-got-my-girlfriend-erased-from-spacetime’ thing over again, leaving out the girlfriend.”

“Thought I wasn’t allowed to use my watch that way,” Frank snapped, and glared back up at them. “I seem to recall a conversation a few hours ago making _that _crystal-fucking-clear."

“For repairs, dipshit. You’re not doing a repair. And you’re already part of events, so that’s not an issue anymore.” The figure pulled out their own watch and started fiddling with it. “I guess you can do what you want, but it might be easier to get through to him without a head injury. Any questions before I skip off to plot the details of your redundancy?”

Frank was about to tell them to fuck off in exactly as many words when a thought occurred to him, forgotten in all the excitement. “Monday night, before the repair,” he said, looking back down at Gerard. “He said I kissed him, but I don’t remember doing it.”

They pulled up on their watch crown in a disgruntled sort of way and huffed. “Your sex life is not within Our purview, Frank. If you want to complain about boy problems, call your mom.”

“Why would You wipe that for me and not for him?” Frank pressed. “And don’t bullshit me. I’ve been doing this long enough to know the difference between blacking out and getting wiped.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” They took out their phone again and moved toward the door. “Believe it or not, We’ve got better things to do than interfere with your life all the time. Stop being paranoid and learn to hold your fucking liquor, maybe.”

Frank shot to his feet and threw himself in front of the door. “I _know_ You fucking wiped it, asshole! Tell me why!” He reached out to take hold of their robe, but they pushed down on their watch crown before he got a grip on it - he let out a furious growl as they disappeared and burnt-fuse smell filled Frank’s apartment. God _damn_ it. Frank tilted his chin to shoot a vitriolic look toward the ceiling. “Fuck you,” he called to the empty room. “Fuck you very much.” He was not blacked out at Mikey’s party, he _knew_ that, he’d been much more wasted without blacking out before, and what it did to his memory was different than what They did when They wiped shit. Another fucking enigma to make him suffer, apparently.

He gave Gerard another quick once-over just to make sure he was alright (as close as he could be to alright with a concussion, that is), and then made his way over to the coffee table to pick up his watch. It had probably been close to ten minutes since Gerard opened the door, maybe a minute or so longer. Frank scrolled dials with his left hand while he shook out his right. Maybe he was imagining it, but it still felt tingly, like accidentally touching an exposed wire. The last time he’d made a negotiation with Them it had been buzzy for days after. Side effect of the bond, he guessed. He wished it would leave some kind of mark; a scar, or a tattoo. It would be easier to explain to Gerard if he had visual evidence.

He popped up the crown and stood looking down at the watch face for a moment, considering.Well. Gerard didn’t _need _to know that Frank had leveraged his own soul against Gerard’s. Actually, it would probably lead to another panic attack. Frank might need to keep this to himself for the time being. Wasn’t like he was gonna make good on Their terms anyway. They were fucking delusional if They thought he’d let Gerard just kill himself like that; but he’d burn that bridge when he got to it. He’d bought them both another three years at least. Plenty of time to figure something out. He nodded once, and steeled himself before pressing back down.

That awful falling sensation, a blink, and suddenly Gerard was intact and on his feet, hands in his hair while he trod a frenetic track behind the coffee table. “I fucking _died_ from time traveling wrong and _you’re_ the one who was fucking freaking out? What the fuck, Frank! What were you thinking?”

Frank’s eyes watered and his nose burned, and he couldn’t remember what he’d said that led to this moment. The reset watch slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the coffee table. Time traveling without accompanying travel through space was fucking disorienting, as it turned out - he’d never traveled within his own body before. Dizzy, Frank dropped down to the couch and tried to steady himself. “Uh. Sorry, I’m sort of - we’re talking about Tuesday, right? You only died for a couple seconds, probably, if that helps.”

Gerard stopped short and glared reproachfully at him. His eyebrows had almost disappeared into his hairline. “Yes, we are talking about fucking Tuesday, are you having a stroke or something?”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Frank, holding his head between his hands. “I told you…right, I told you about the botched finger prick thing, and the cardiac arrest. Okay. I’m with you.” He scrubbed briskly at his eyes. “Got a little, um, lost for a second there. More drunk than I thought.” Well, technically now it was a hangover. Alcohol and reset watches were not simpatico and it would have burned out of his system when he went though the link. Now he just felt nauseous. “You were saying?”

“Don’t be a jackass, that was less than thirty seconds ago,” Gerard snapped. “Tell me what else happened. How did I die for a _couple seconds_ and not wind up on the ICU?”

Frank stood up again and wobbled toward the kitchen for some water. “Because They’re a time correcting organization, dude. You need a month to recover from a near death experience? Easy. They can cram that into a couple hours.” He filled up a glass at the sink and chugged it, then refilled it to take with him. When he returned to the living room, Gerard had his arms crossed over his chest and was staring him down with the bitchiest look Frank had seen on his face yet. “What?”

Gerard rolled his eyes. “‘_What_,’ he says. As though having weeks of my life disappear down the drain because I fucking died for a couple seconds is some normal, common thing. Are you fucking hearing yourself?”

Frank let out a frustrated sigh and pressed his hand over his eyes. “Gerard, I’m sorry, alright? I really am. It was a stupid thing to try and you’re right, Them stealing your time from you is fuckin’ awful. I know. They’ve been doing it to me for years.” And for at least another three more, he added darkly in his head. He set down his water and picked up Gerard’s cigarettes to light a fresh one, ignoring the increased bitchiness doing so incurred. “The good news is, you’re not still dead and you’re not bound to Them. Consider yourself lucky.”

“Oh yeah, lucky, that’s the word,” Gerard scoffed. He violently shoved his hands into his front jeans pockets. “You still haven’t told me what happened to you.”

The nicotine hit helped the sudden clench of grief around Frank’s chest to not cinch quite so tight, but it still forced him to take a moment and breathe through it. “I got my ass handed to me, is what. Broke a lot of Their rules by doing what I did, and They had to remind me.” He shoved his free hand into his hoodie pocket and tilted his chin to look up at the ceiling, willing himself not to cry.

“You don’t look any worse than you did the last time I saw you,” Gerard pointed out.

“Wasn’t physical.” Frank swallowed. “Once I was finished with your repair, I was supposed to go back to my own timeline. Fulfill the terms of my contract and get the fuck away from Them. As punishment for fucking up, They erased my original timeline and - “ He caught himself just before he spilled about Jamia all over again, and shook his head, blinking back tears. “They extended me by another three years.”

He didn’t see Gerard move toward him, since he was still looking up, but he felt when Gerard placed a tentative hand on his elbow and heard him clear his throat. “When you say erased,” said Gerard, quietly, “you mean…”

Fuck, so much for not crying. No use fighting it. Frank closed his eyes. “The version of the world I came from is gone. Everyone I knew, everything I experienced, it’s all only in my head now.”

Gerard sucked in a breath. “Oh, Jesus.”

Frank said nothing for a bit, just let his chin drop to his chest and let out a breath. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand and wiped his face with it. “With the exception of the repairs I’ll still have to do for Them, I’m permanently stuck in this timeline,” he said, when he could speak through the lump in his throat. “So, um. I’m hoping you don’t hate me, because you’re kind of my only friend now.”

“I don’t hate you,” said Gerard instantly, and Frank opened his eyes - Gerard was in front of him now, watching him in that wide-eyed, earnest way that made Frank want to fling both arms around him. Gerard stepped forward and plucked the cigarette from his fingers, dropping it in the coffee table ashtray before he grasped both of Frank’s shoulders. “Like, okay. Temporarily killing me wasn’t cool, and I don’t want to get time traveled without being told first, but I don’t hate you. Hey,” he said in surprise when Frank’s face crumpled and he let out a sob. “Aw, Frank, it’s alright. Come here.” Gerard gently pulled Frank in toward him, and Frank gave into his earlier impulse, throwing his arms around Gerard’s ribcage and clutching fistfuls of his t-shirt.

“M’ sorry,” he choked out, and Gerard shushed him, but Frank shook his head tightly and buried his face in Gerard’s shirtfront. “I know you didn’t - didn’t ask for this - “

“Neither did you.” Gerard hooked his chin over Frank’s shoulder. “And you did try to warn me. So don’t be sorry.” He pulled Frank in a little tighter, stroking a hand up and down Frank’s spine. “Guess we both had a rough week.”

Frank gave a clogged-sounding bark of bitter laughter. “You fuckin’ said it.” He sniffled, and screwed his eyes shut to get ahold of himself, breathing in the smell of fabric softener mingling with cigarette smoke. Now was not the time to grieve this. Not with Gerard here. And he had too much work to do still to get stuck in mourning. Once he felt less like his chest would collapse in on itself, Frank let go of Gerard and stepped back to scrub his face clean with the bottom hem of his hoodie. “Christ, look at us, sitting around crying like a bunch of girls.”

“Crying isn’t inherently feminine,” said Gerard, frowning. Frank looked at him with his hoodie still bunched up around his chin. Gerard widened his eyes and spread his hands. “What? It’s not, nothing is.”

Frank giggled, and shook his head, pressing his hands over his face for a moment before he went to fish his unfinished cigarette out of the ashtray. “Stop being so fucking cool for a minute, will you? It’s exhausting.” Now he knew why girls had liked Gerard so much in his own timeline. He made his way back over to the couch and took a heavy seat, folding himself into a corner and hugging his knees to his chest. “Um, I think I touched on all the major things, let me think - watch, time travel, Tuesday, Them,” he said, ticking off on his fingers. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask?”

Gerard had been just kind of blinking at him with a sort of dazed expression, but he seemed to come around when Frank addressed him directly and shook his head a little. “Uh. Well. Yeah, like, a _ton_ of things.” He came around to sit on the edge of the coffee table again. “But I don’t want to make you talk about it if you’re not ready, or - “

“Dude, it’s fine,” Frank interrupted, waving his hand. “We’re probably not gonna get a chance to talk about it like this again, so just ask.”

Gerard plunged a hand into his hair and wrapped a strand of it around his finger, looking thoughtful and also kind of pained. “If you’re not from here, where are you from?”

Oh yeah, he hadn’t actually said. Frank fumbled around for a lighter. “I’m from here. Just not _now._ I was born in Belleville in 1995.”

The look of utter shock on Gerard’s face almost made Frank burst out laughing. Gerard’s hand dropped into his lap as he gaped at Frank. “Dude. I graduated _high school_ in 1995. What the fuck do you mean, you were born in 1995?”

Frank started giggling while he relit his cigarette - he couldn’t help it, Gerard just looked so _horrified_, it was hilarious. “I told you. Different timeline. They bound me right after I turned twenty-one, and I think it’s been about seven years that I’ve been doing repairs, so.” He shrugged. “It’s only weird if you think about time in a linear sense. I mean, I’m obviously not about to turn six.”

“Man, wait a second.” Gerard clutched his head between his hands. “They didn’t bind you till you were in college, which means you didn’t start time traveling until then, which means…” He looked back up at Frank, eyes wide. “You’re from the fucking future.”

“Was,” Frank corrected. “I _was_ from the future. That future no longer exists. Maybe there’ll be some similarities, but all the stuff that happened in the version I originally saw probably either won’t happen or will happen in different ways.” He rubbed his jaw, fingers slipping down to his stitches, which probably needed to come out soon. “So don’t ask me what it’s like, because I have no idea.”

“Oh.” Gerard looked a little disappointed, bless him, but shook it off. “But that means it’s technically your past, right? Your past, my future. Except that neither of them exists. Or, mine will, and yours will just be…different? Fuck.” He made a face. “This shit is complicated.”  
  
“You’re telling me.” Frank sat up straight. “Now that I’m stuck in this timeline, I have to rework my entire life story. They gave me paperwork and stuff to get by in, like, the legal sense. Driver’s license and all that. But I have to make up an entirely new narrative for everything I did till now. That’s what all this is,” and he gestured around the room to the papers scattered over everything. “It’s been way harder than I thought it would be. Like, I thought I could just keep the stories and change the dates, right? But I can’t tell people about the Fall Out Boy concert I went to in middle school, because now I was in middle school in 1993 and Patrick Stump was like, nine.”

“What’s Fall Out Boy?” asked Gerard, confused.

Frank stood up and tossed his now-spent filter into the ashtray. “They’re a band. You’ll find out.” He circled the room in search of the landline phone he’d bought and hooked up that afternoon. (A totally stupid and arcane process that made it clear to Frank why cell phones had replaced the fucking things so quickly.) “I don’t know about you, but all this having feelings and shit is making me hungry. Do you want takeout?”

They picked up more cigarettes and a six-pack from the convenience store down the block while they waited for Thai food to arrive, and Gerard helped Frank assemble the strewn bits of personal history Frank had invented so far. He didn’t bother explaining the repair diagrams - they were way too complex and since Gerard wasn’t going to work for Them, he didn’t need to know how they worked anyway - but he did let Gerard read the narrative stuff, which fascinated Gerard to no end.

“You taught yourself to play guitar?” he asked, when Frank got up to grab another beer out of the fridge. “That’s awesome!”

“Yeah, it was kind of a ‘fuck-you’ to my dad cause he wanted me to play drums.” He popped off the bottle cap with the edge of the kitchen counter. “Made my technique a little fucked up, but I play well enough. Drove the jazz instructor at Rutgers nuts. He made me practice intervals in lab until my fucking fingers bled.” Frank picked up his carton of vegan spicy peanut noodles on his way back to the couch. Gerard was sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the arm of the couch with a stack of paper piled next to him, and looked up askance when Frank sat back down.

“Jazz?” he echoed, picking up another sheet.

Frank shrugged. “Pre-req for the rock class. And it did help me with my fingering.” 

Gerard nodded, looking thoughtful. “Maybe I should take a jazz class. I suck at guitar.” He reached for his beer and took a swig. “I played for Ray and Otter today and they both agreed I’m not allowed to play live. Or, like, ever.”

“Who?” Frank asked, feigning confusion even as his stomach dropped. He hadn’t realized the band came together this soon - it felt like a countdown timer had just started. Frank stared down into his noodles, dread creeping into his faint beer buzz. When was it they had started touring? How was Frank supposed to keep tabs on Gerard when he left?

“Oh, shit, I totally forgot to tell you!” Gerard turned to look at him, dropping all of the papers he’d been holding onto the coffee table. “I quit Cartoon Network and started a band. Well, sort of. We’re still writing songs and we need more people, but we’re gonna ask Mikey if he’ll play bass and Otter, he’s our drummer, wants to record some stuff in his home studio. You already know Ray, kind of. He’s the guy who was playing at the Six Hell Slaughter show that Mikey and I knew.”

“Awesome!” Frank beamed despite his mounting anxiety. “When in doubt, start a band, that’s what I always say. Does it have a name yet?”

Gerard shook his head. “I was brainstorming stuff when we met up earlier, but I don’t want to force it, you know?” A thought seemed to occur to him suddenly, and he straightened up on his knees, looking at Frank with renewed interest. “You’ve gotta be good at guitar if you played in college, yeah?”

Frank dug into his noodles again. “In theory. I haven’t played as much since I started with Them, so I’m definitely out of practice. Why, you want me to teach you?”

“No. Well, maybe someday, but I’m not kidding when I tell you I’m pretty hopeless. It’d take me a long fuckin’ time to get up to the level Ray wants.” Gerard grinned at him. “No, dude, I want you to play in my band.”

He froze with noodles halfway to his mouth, and they slipped off the chopsticks back into the carton with a slippery sort of plop. Frank stared at Gerard in shock. “You want me to - what?” He set the carton down in his lap. “I haven’t picked up a guitar in months, Gee. Probably longer.”

Gerard shrugged. “You rusty could definitely kick my ass eight ways to Sunday. Ray’s got a practice space. I think he has a guitar you can borrow if you want.” He edged forward and placed his chin on Frank’s knee, looking up at him mock-pleadingly. “Come ooooon, Frankie. We need a guitar player. And you just quit your job, so I know you’ve got time.”

Oh, no, there was that face again - the same one he’d made when he invited Frank to the show at the bar, all wide-eyed and hopeful and _cute_. Frank pressed his lips together to fight a smile. “Taking advantage of my unemployment, huh? That’s low, Way.”

“Hey, it’s not just you, remember?” Gerard gave an exaggerated pout. “Please? Just come to one practice. If you hate it and us, you don’t have to stay, but I think we’re onto something special.”

_I know you are,_ Frank didn’t say. He just gave into a grin, and shook his head. “I need so much practice, dude. I don’t even really have calluses anymore.”

Gerard contorted his eyebrows into a tragic mask and made the most ridiculous, pathetic whine Frank had ever heard. Frank stared back at him impassively for as long as he could stand before he finally cracked. Gerard dissolved into giggles along with him, and they laughed together until Gerard caught his breath back. “Seriously, dude, just come to the next practice. You can meet Ray and Otter, we’ll show you what we’ve got, Mikey’ll be there, it’ll be great.”

Frank pursed his lips and squinted playfully at Gerard. “Fine,” he said after pretending to consider for a moment. “But I’m gonna need to borrow that guitar, like, ASAP.”


	10. First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're gonna be great, okay?" Frank said, staring at him in that same sort of intense way he had outside Mikey's birthday party. "You, these songs, this band, people are gonna love all of it. Trust me."

DECEMBER 19TH, 1986

To say he was cutting it close would be an understatement. Frank risked a glance at his Them phone, counting down how much time he had to get back to 2002, and grimaced, shoving it away again with a troubled sigh. Half an hour till their set time. Otter was so going to kill him. He didn’t always know the exact, to-the-second time a repair should happen, especially for events that didn’t have a lot of witnesses (or any), and the windows of opportunity could be anywhere from five minutes to several hours. The window for this one was, according to Them, half an hour. But kids were unpredictable. Fifty-two minutes in, shivering on a front stoop in only a t-shirt and thin cotton hoodie, Frank was losing patience fast. He hated winter so fucking much, and having landed here immediately coming out of June ’77, he wasn’t exactly dressed for the weather. He used to get pneumonia every single fucking year when he was a kid. If this thing didn’t happen soon, he would probably get _super_ pneumonia and then die of exposure. Or frostbite. He’d thought about sneaking away to raid one of the other houses on the street for a parka, but since the repair was technically in progress he couldn’t just walk away.

Extra annoying that he had only a vague idea of what his subject - or subjects, he supposed - looked like at this age. It wasn’t like Gerard had showed him baby pictures. In fact, he suspected that the one time he went over to their house after a practice and Gerard made him wait on the back porch for like ten minutes, it was so Gerard could run around and hide all the family photos, since when he finally got to go in, there wasn’t so much as a Polaroid hung on the fridge. (Hilarious for a lot of reasons, mostly because they were inside for all of two minutes so Gerard could grab a different jacket.) For all Frank knew, the Way brothers were towheads as kids.

He checked his watch, keeping 1986 time, and scrubbed his hands together in an attempt to rub some feeling back into his fingers. At least he knew he was in the right place. The street had changed very little in fourteen years - even the cars didn’t look all that different, and some of them he was pretty sure were just newer versions of themselves. Jersey itself didn’t change much, Frank noticed, in all the decades he’d visited.

“But I don’t _wanna_ be Robin again. You never let me do the cool stuff when I’m Robin.”

Frank looked up. Across the street and several houses down, two boys shuffled up the sidewalk, bundled up to their noses. Frank had to tamp down a laugh - they were so _cute_. Both of them were wearing more color than he’d ever seen them in as adults, and Mikey didn’t have his glasses yet, but they were unmistakable. (And neither were towheaded.) Gerard, a couple steps ahead of Mikey in a forest green parka and blue striped scarf, heaved an audible sigh and looked over his shoulder at his brother. 

“Mikey, we talked about this. You have to be Robin, cause you’re younger than me. And I know more karate than you do.”

Mikey huffed, a puff of white clouding in front of his little face. “You don’t know any stupid karate! Mama stopped letting you go after that girl gave you a nosebleed and you only got a white belt.”

Gerard scowled. “Shut up! I learned, like, four kicks.”

Oh, this was gold. They were _exactly_ the same, just smaller, and Frank couldn’t contain a grin even as his heart rate picked up knowing what came next. He got to his feet, bouncing up and down the steps a few times to work the cold out of his legs. At the end of the street, a maroon sedan veered around the corner, and Frank kept an eye on it while tracking Gerard and Mikey’s progress toward him. Their house was five away from where they were now, Frank waiting next door at the fourth. He came down to the edge of the curb.

Mikey wiped at his nose with the back of one pattered mitten. “Mama said to stop saying shut up at me. It’s not nice.” The maroon sedan swerved a ways down the road. Frank cut a glance at it, then back to the boys. “I can do karate kicks. See, watch!” He swiveled around, flinging his leg in the air like a cartoon character.

Gerard rolled his eyes - it was strange to see such a familiar expression on a nine-year-old - and crammed his hands into his pockets while he watched Mikey kick his way past him. “That’s not karate,” he said, bratty. “That’s dumb.”

“_You’re_ dumb,” Mikey shot back. His backpack, almost as big as him, started to slip off his shoulders as his kicking got more vigorous. “Hi-yaa! Bam! Taste my karate fury, Joker! HAAAaahhh - ! “

It happened fast, but Frank was used to that - he was already in motion, so he barely saw each moment unfold: Mikey slipping off the curb and stumbling into the street, backpack dragging him off-balance; the maroon sedan swerving, squealing as the brakes locked and the tires skidded on a patch of ice; Gerard’s panicked scream. Frank scooped Mikey into his arms just before the sedan’s bumper swung out, and let momentum carry them both over the sidewalk and into the nearest yard. There was an ear-splitting bang as the sedan crashed into another parked car on the street; Frank and Mikey landed backward in a pile of dirty snow, Mikey on top of Frank. Freezing meltwater seeped into the seat of Frank’s jeans. Dazed, he blinked up at the leaden December sky.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, pulse thrumming in his ears. He scooted up to sitting, arms still locked around Mikey, and looked down at him. “You okay, dude? That was pretty close.”

Mikey clung to his t-shirt, wide-eyed. “Yeah,” he said in a small voice, and then his whole face crumpled. Frank gave him a hug as Mikey started bawling.

“Aw, buddy, it’s okay. You’re okay. Hey, those were some sweet karate kicks.” Frank looked up at Gerard, frozen and pale on the sidewalk, watching them like he couldn’t quite believe either of them were real. “Are you his brother?”

Gerard nodded. Poor kid. He looked scared shitless. Frank climbed back to his feet - slow going as Mikey held tight to his middle, still sobbing - and gestured Gerard over with his chin. “You should get him home. Tell your mom what happened, she’ll take care of him.” Gerard, seemingly galvanized by instructions, rushed forward and grabbed Mikey, who instantly latched onto him, and together they hurried across the street and into their house. Frank gave his head a hard shake and blew out a breath. Adrenaline had warmed him up almost to normal - he did a little dance in place to work out the excess, his limbs jittery and fingers buzzing.

In the street, the driver of the maroon sedan opened their door and lurched out. She was young, a teenager, Frank guessed, and she was even more distraught than Mikey. Mascara ran down her cheeks like thin black worms. “I - I didn’t see him,” she blubbered, as Frank joined her to inspect the damage. The front bumper of her car had a good-sized dent in it; ditto the rear wheel well of the car she’d hit. “Mrs. Way’s gonna have a cow, I babysit for them all the time and I could have killed him, oh my God!”

Frank patted her shoulder. “He’ll be fine. He’s a little shaken up right now, but he’ll be okay in a couple hours.”

The girl sniffled and buried her face in her hands, her honey blonde perm tumbling forward around her ears. “My parents are gonna kill me,” she moaned.

The front door of the Way house banged open, and Donna Way came flying out of it like it was on fire. “What the hell happened?” she shouted, pulling a bright pink nylon jacket around her shoulders as she stormed down the front steps. “Rachel? Are you all right?”

Rachel sobbed, and looked helplessly at Frank, who was itching to get as far away from this as possible because he was so late, he could feel it. Namely, he could feel his Them phone vibrating in his pocket over and over - an adult Gerard, calling him from 2002 to ask him where the fuck he was. “Just a fender bender,” he said, subtly nudging his phone buttons through his pocket to turn off the buzzing. “Nothing catastrophic.”

“Scared the living shit out of my boys,” said Donna, wrapping an arm around Rachel and squinting at Frank, an edge of disdain curling her lip as she looked over his tattoos. “I haven’t seen you around this neighborhood before.”

Frank shrugged. “Just passing through.” He shoved his hands into his front jeans pockets and curled his fingers around his reset watch. “I gotta get going, actually - “

“Mama! That’s him!” Gerard dashed out of the house, still in his winter gear. He ran up to his mother’s side and stared at Frank with huge eyes. “He saved Mikey from getting crushed to death, it was so cool!”

“Saved Mikey from _what?_” Donna rounded on her son in disbelief. “Gerard Arthur Way, you walk Mikey home from school to keep him safe, are you telling me you almost let him get hit by a _car?_”

Gerard shrank back and furiously shook his head. “No! Honest, Mama, I was watching him, I swear!”

“The little guy slipped off the curb is all,” Frank interrupted, catching Gerard’s eye, who looked grateful for the assist. “I’m sure Gerard was being an otherwise excellent brother. Just bad timing.” He winked, and Gerard offered a shy smile before ducking into his mother’s side. Donna put her arm around him, and looked Frank over with a renewed tilt to her head.

“What did you say your name was?” she asked. Frank hesitated - should he lie? Not respond?

“Are you a superhero?” Gerard piped, and Frank glanced at him and laughed.

“Nah, can’t be. I don’t know any karate.” He backed away then, looking purposefully down the road. “Ma’am, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m gonna be so late for - work,” he lied, and waved at the three of them. “Uh, sorry about your car, Rachel. Gerard, you keep an eye out for Mikey, yeah?” He took off at a jog, and once he’d rounded the block ducked behind a garage and pulled out his Them phone. Twelve minutes till their set, and he still had one more errand to run here, _fuck._ His dad’s parents’ house was juuust far enough from here that sprinting wouldn’t get him there in time. He blew out a breath, and yanked out his reset watch. He shouldn’t use it for this, but what the hell, They’d screwed him on the timing for this repair, he could just blame Them if They wanted to raise hell about it. Frank quickly looked up the coordinates and set the dials one-handed. 

He was in such a rush to get out, he missed the hazel eyes peeking around the corner, widening in astonishment as he pushed down on the crown and disappeared.

* * *

JANUARY 7TH, 2002

“He’s late.”

Ray heaved an enormous sigh, a cloud of steam rising up around his face in the frigid January night air. “Otter, dude, that’s not helping.” He folded his arms over his chest, checking his watch as he did. “There’s still ten minutes before we go on, so he’s got time, alright?”

The four of them - Matt, Ray, Gerard, and Mikey - had commandeered the touring band’s van (with permission) while they played, in lieu of a green room backstage because the bar was too small. They’d thrown open the sliding door and huddled around it, Gerard and Mikey seated side by side on the van floor while Ray and Matt stood with their backs to the parking lot. A dwindling case of Rolling Rock sat on the asphalt in the middle of them all. Ostensibly they were out here to warm up, but all they’d done since opening up the van was bicker and, in Gerard and Mikey’s case, pound beer like there was a shortage. Gerard clutched a bottle in one hand and a cell phone he’d borrowed from the bar’s manager in the other, redialing the number Frank had given him for emergencies over and over while Mikey leaned against his shoulder.

(A new childhood memory, mostly-buried in time travel complications, age, and alcohol, quietly coalesced in each of their minds. Neither of them took notice, distracted as they were.)

Matt scowled at Ray around a cigarette. “That little shit’s been late to every single goddamned thing we’ve done as a band. The only practice he showed up on time for was the first one he came to, and that was only because Gerard brought him. He’s not even on the fuckin’ demos!”

“Neither am I,” Mikey slurred, muffled some by Gerard’s leather jacket, and Matt glared at him before stooping to take another beer.

“You had finals, that’s different,” said Ray, rolling his eyes at Matt and grabbing the bottle away from him before he could get it open. “Could you please not get plastered? You’re the drummer.”

Gerard groaned as the call went to voicemail yet again. He dumped out the dregs of his sixth beer and instantly picked up a seventh, ignoring the impatient look it earned him from Ray. “He has to be on his way. Otherwise he’d pick up.” He fumbled a little with the bottle opener, hands shaking, and he all but chugged it as soon as he got the top off. 

“If we have to go on without him, he’s out,” Matt declared, flicking his spent filter into the gutter. He zipped his jacket up below his chin and crammed his hands into the pockets. “It’s our first fucking show! If he can’t be bothered to show up for _this_, then he clearly doesn’t give a shit.”

“He gave enough of a shit to get us this gig,” Ray pointed out acidly. “Or did you forget that part?”

None of them were even sure, still, what really went down to get them here. They’d gone to Big Daddy’s as a band to see Thursday, Frank putting in a rare on-time appearance to join them, and promptly disappeared as soon as they got there in favor of the bar. By the time they caught up to him, he was a pitcher of beer and a conversation deep with the booking guy at this place, and after a handshake, they had their first show locked down. The other guys chalked it up to Frank’s inexplicable charm, but Gerard suspected time fuckery was at play.

Matt sneered at Ray. “That was dumb fucking luck, and you know it.”

“He’ll be here,” Gerard insisted tightly, and polished off the Rolling Rock with another gulp. God, he was so fucking nervous. Pitching Breakfast Monkey was nothing compared to the abject terror he felt now. He was gonna have to sing what he wrote, in front of people, who would all be _looking_ at him, and he was so not ready. Somehow in all the excitement of starting this band and doing the demos, the reality of performing hadn’t fully occurred to him, and now here he was on the verge of a full-blown anxiety attack. And that was _despite_ the beer. The fact that Frank wasn’t answering his fucking phone just made it all that much worse.

“We’re not gonna have time to sound check,” said Ray, as the crowd noise from the bar suddenly spiked, signaling the end of the touring band’s set. He glanced worriedly toward the back door, and then out at the street. “Did he say how he was getting here? I thought he still didn’t have a car.”

Gerard pressed the phone to his ear again while he cracked yet another bottle, which Mikey promptly stole and guzzled. “No, but he’ll figure it out. He always does.” He shoved at Mikey, shooting him a black look, and reached over him for another one. 

Matt pushed the case out of Gerard’s reach with his foot. “Figure it out? Frank has fuck-all figured out. And I don’t think our frontman shouldn’t get plastered either,” he added, knocking Gerard’s hand back when he tried reaching again.

“Matt,” Ray warned, and inserted himself between Matt and Gerard. “Gerard, anything?”  
  
The call went to voicemail again. Gerard looked at Ray and shook his head; Matt scoffed, muttering to himself as he stepped away and lit another cigarette. “Frank, hey, it’s Gerard. Um, just trying to find out where you are, cause we’re on in five minutes and we still have to sound check, so. Call me back, we’re worried about you.” He hung up and turned to Mikey, wrapping his arms around himself. “He wouldn’t just not show,” he said in a small voice, and Mikey made a _you and I both know damn well that’s a possibility _grimace at him_. _Gerard huffed. 

“Listen, Gerard,” Matt began, loudly, and Gerard looked up at him with his jaw set, “I get that Frank’s your, like, personal rescue project or whatever - “

“Will you fucking stop?” Ray snapped at last, but Matt barreled on over him.

“But he obviously isn’t invested in this band, or you, no matter how much you make eyes at him during practice. Stop making excuses for him. It’s fucking sad.”

Gerard felt his face instantly flush scarlet, tongue-tied with humiliation while Ray and Mikey both jumped in to protest, yelling over each other - Mikey lurched unsteadily to his feet, and Ray finally started shoving Matt toward the bar. “That’s enough, asshole! We’re going inside. Gerard, here.” Ray took the van keys out of his jacket pocket and tossed them to Gerard. “Lock up before you come in. I’ll set up for you.”

Gerard just nodded at him, and hunched over his knees. Ray exchanged a look with Mikey before turning back to body-check Matt through the back door, viciously muttering something to him Gerard couldn’t make out.

“Fucking dickhead,” Mikey fumed, swiveling to face Gerard again. “He’s just bent that Frank got us a gig before he did. Are you okay?”

He swallowed. “Yeah.” He grabbed one last beer before packing the case away in the van and hauling the door shut - he had to lean up against the side of the van for a long second because his head swam and his balance was fucked. Eyes closed, he pressed his forehead into the crook of his elbow and asked Mikey, “Do I really make eyes at Frank when we practice?”

Mikey said nothing, and Gerard groaned, dropping his arm to thunk his head against the freezing metal siding. “If it helps, I don’t think Frank’s noticed?” Mikey offered.

“Fuckin’ super,” Gerard muttered, cast around for the bottle opener, and when he didn’t find it wedged the cap into the gap between the van door and the body and whacked the bottle sideways. The cap went flying, and as beer foamed up and bubbled over out of the neck, he leaned over awkwardly to chug what he could. He stayed hunched there for a while, feeling kind of sick. A hand came to rest between his shoulder blades.

“I’m so fucking scared,” Mikey admitted to him, quietly, and Gerard let out a breath in a whoosh and nodded. _Me, too_.

The back door crashed open as Gerard straightened up again, warm light and noise spilling into the gray-washed parking lot. Behind it stood Frank, haloed in the yellow glow like a vision, grinning widely and holding a battered guitar case Gerard had never seen before in one hand. “What the fuck are you guys doing out here? We’re on in two minutes!”

“Frank!” Mikey slouched hurriedly toward the door. “Where the hell have you been, asshole? Gerard practically used up all of Kevin’s minutes trying to get you on the phone.”

“The important thing, mon frère, is that I’m here now,” Frank said cheerfully, slapping Mikey on the shoulder as he passed. “Damn, you reek like shitty beer. You guys been drinking?”

“Not nearly enough,” said Mikey, with feeling, as he disappeared around the corner.

Frank looked back to Gerard, grin fading as he took in Gerard’s no doubt thunderous expression and the way his arms were crossed so tightly over his chest he was starting to lose feeling in his fingertips. He sighed. “Okay, I know you’re mad - “

“What is the _point,_” Gerard seethed, closing the gap between them in a few faltering steps, “of having an emergency number for you if you _don’t fucking answer it?_”

“I was in the middle of something!” From this new, closer view, Gerard could see the small changes in him - he’d picked up a nose ring, his hair was faded from the vibrant black and longer on the sides, the long, thin scar through his Jinx Removing tattoo a little more silvered. Frank took the zipper hem of Gerard’s jacket and urged him inside with it. “And I was in 1986. Can’t exactly whip out a smartphone,” he said, low in Gerard’s ear. “But I had a timer. I wasn’t gonna bail on you again.”

Gerard shook him off with a huff. “And I was supposed to know that how? Jesus, Frank, you’re a lot of things but reliable is not fucking one of them.” He gestured down at the guitar case. “You got time to pick that up, but not the phone?”

“This was what I was doing.” Frank shut the back door and started down the hall, Gerard reluctantly following behind. “Stayed a little longer to grab it. Almost fucked up, but luckily Dad and I look pretty similar if you squint and I’m running away.”

“What?” Gerard stumbled over a cable haphazardly taped along a door sill when his shoe kicked up a loose corner of tape. Frank caught him by the elbows, the case thumping to the hall floor, and steadied him again.

“Whoa, easy. Don’t bust your nose before you get onstage.” He looked a little closer at Gerard, searching his face. “How much did you drink?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Gerard complained, annoyed, and pushed Frank’s hands away. Frank raised his eyebrows, but let Gerard get away from him without protest. “What did you say about your dad?”

“The guitar’s his. Well. It’s mine now. And he’s not _really_ my dad, but he’s a version of him.” He picked up the case again and made for the stage door. “Anyway, point is, I have a guitar to play now.”

Gerard stood for a moment trying to process this, blinking at a fraying poster of KISS on the wall, until Frank made an impatient noise at him and grabbed him by the sleeve.

“Come on, Gee, Otter already wants me dead. Let’s not give him any more reason.” Together they shouldered through the stage door, Frank a little behind him, and Gerard instantly forgot about fighting with Frank in favor of sheer terror seizing him all at once upon catching sight of the crowd. It wasn’t even a big crowd - sixty, seventy people maybe, no doubt there to see the touring band and not them - but it was enough to freeze him in place at the very edge of the stage. Frank accidentally bumped him with the guitar case. “Hey, what’s - Gerard? You okay?”

“…Uh,” said Gerard. He gazed out at the room with his heart in his throat. Jesus, he couldn’t do this. There wasn’t enough beer in the world for this. He turned his head to look helplessly at Frank, eyes wide. “I…Frank, I can’t.”

Frank looked confused, and he started to say something, but changed his mind. He leaned past Gerard to set his case on the floor beside an amp Ray brought, then took hold of Gerard’s elbow and steered him back into the hall despite a glower from Matt that Gerard could feel on the back of his head. Frank pulled the door closed behind them. “Okay, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

It was easier being back here, out of sight, but Gerard still felt like he couldn’t take a full breath. He gasped through a few shallow, tight inhales, searching Frank’s face as best he could. The yellow lights had shut off, probably so they wouldn’t leak out onto the stage. There was just a single blue bulb above their heads now, and in its low light Frank was mostly in relief, some glint coming off his lip and new nose ring. “There’s people. Looking.”

“Wait. Do you have stage fright?” Gerard nodded unhappily. “I thought you did musicals when you were a kid?”

“I did _one_,” said Gerard, knotting his fingers together. “And I was nine.”

“Ah.” Frank gave a private sort of laugh, and then grabbed Gerard’s shoulders with both hands.“All right, listen to me. This? Is nothing. A tiny bar show in a state you’ve lived in all your life. We’re gonna play four songs. Less than half an hour. And we’re gonna fucking crush it, okay? It’ll be awesome! Even if we sound like shit, we’re gonna have so much fucking fun out there, dude. You’re gonna feel amazing after this is over. Promise.” And he grinned, and he really meant everything he was saying, and Gerard wanted to believe him so, so much. (And, as usual, he really wanted Frank to kiss him again, but he wasn’t going to say that part out loud. He hoped.) 

“What if they hate it?” he said. Frank shook his head.

“Fuck ‘em! Who cares what the hell they think? In five years they’ll be telling all their friends about the time they went to the first…what did we decide we’re called?”

Gerard laughed, a little breathless with anxiety still. “My Chemical Romance. Mikey’s idea. He saw it on a book at work.”

Frank seemed pleased by this. “Badass. Yeah, they’ll be telling everyone they saw the very first My Chemical Romance show ever played, and I guaran-fucking-tee you they’re not gonna fuckin’ remember whether or not we sounded good or if the songs sucked or whatever, they’ll just remember it was a great show. Because it will be.” He gently slapped both shoulders and then took Gerard’s face between his hands. “Look at me.”

Gerard did.

“You’re gonna be great, okay?” Frank said, staring at him in that same sort of intense way he had outside Mikey’s birthday party. “You, these songs, this band, people are gonna love all of it. Trust me.”

Gerard nodded, and the fear cinching around his chest eased up a little, just enough that he could take a deep breath, and then another. Frank’s hands were cool and soothing against his cheeks, and he closed his eyes for a moment. “I trust you.”

“Good.” Frank’s hands dropped away from his face. Gerard mourned the loss of contact for only a split second before Frank’s arms wrapped around him in a tight hug. “You’re one tough motherfucker, Gerard Arthur Way. Go show ‘em what you got.”

They returned to the stage; Frank made a beeline for his guitar to get it plugged in and tuned, and Gerard stepped over to the microphone. Ray stood up from adjusting something on his pedal board and took his pick out of his mouth.

“You good?” he asked, and Gerard nodded. “We checked the levels already, so once Frank’s set up, it’s all you.” Ray grinned at him then, and Gerard managed a weak one in return. “Nervous?”

“And fucking how,” said Gerard. Ray nodded sagely.

“Cool. That means you give a fuck.”

Gerard felt something nudge his shoulder - he turned, and Mikey was staring at him over the rim of his glasses, eyes huge. “Dude. This is really happening.”

“Yeah.” He leaned in, over Mikey’s bass, and pressed their foreheads together, wrapping his fingers around the back of Mikey’s neck. “Love you.”

“Can we do this already? I’m getting gray hair over here,” Matt griped, and beat out a short fill. Over on the right, Frank finished tuning, plugged his “new” guitar into Ray’s amp, and strummed a G - his face split into a huge grin, and he took a knee in front of the amp to adjust it. “Hey, fucker,” Matt called to him. Gerard watched Frank’s shoulders visibly tense.

“Yeah,” Frank replied, curt. He moved over to the pedal board Ray set up for him, and the smile was gone from his face, replaced by a deep furrow in his brow. “Just gonna test the pedals - “

“No need. They’re Ray’s, right? They’ll work. Let’s go,” said Matt, brusque, and pointed at Gerard with both sticks. Gerard glanced around at the other guys - Ray rolled his eyes at Matt, and walked back over to his side of the stage. Mikey shrank back as much as he could and stared down at his shoes like he was gonna throw up. Gerard met Frank’s eye briefly, and Frank jerked his chin at him once. _It’s fine,_ he mouthed. Gerard nodded, and then closed his eyes. 

Four songs. Less than half an hour. He could do this.

Fuck. _Fuck._

He spun around and grabbed the mic with shaking hands. A light flicked on and shone in his face - he had to screw up his eyes for a second until he adjusted to it, and even then there were spots to blink away. “Um,” he said, into the microphone. The sound of his voice echoed through the room just a little - startled, he looked over at Ray, who gave him a thumbs up and leaned into his own mic.

“We’re good, Trav,” he said, and then gestured to Gerard and offered an encouraging smile.

_You’re one tough motherfucker, _he reminded himself, and took a deep breath.

“What the fuck is up, Karman Bar,” he said, and to his surprise his voice sounded fine. There was a weak cheer from the bar crowd in response. And it was sort of hard to see, but he thought some of them moved in closer. “We are My Chemical Romance and we are here to wreck your shit.”

Another weak cheer. Okay, so far not awful. He gripped the microphone and dragged a hand through his hair. “Uh, this is our first show, so thanks for being here, and thanks Karman Bar for having us, we’re pretty fuckin’ stoked to be here.”

“Thanks Kevin!” Frank called from his microphone, and Gerard nodded.

“Yeah, big ups to you, Kevin. You’re rad.” Matt kicked the bass drum twice - Gerard turned back to him, and Matt made a twirly _hurry up_ motion with one stick. He cleared his throat away from the mic and faced front again. “So, um, we’ve got four songs for you, they’re pretty good.” A few whoops from the bar crowd. Gerard gave a nervous laugh. “This first song is about the September attacks, it’s called Turnstiles.”

Matt tapped out a lead-in for them, Ray slammed out the first chords, and halfway through the song, Gerard managed to open his eyes long enough to see that almost the entire crowd was crammed in next to the stage, much to his surprise. And they were into it - like, actually, seriously into it. He looked over at Frank, who was so caught up in playing he’d wrapped his own lead around himself twice, and then at Ray, who looked up just in time to meet his eye and share a look of mutual amazement. Holy shit, this was real. People were into their music. How fucking insane was that?

In the end, Frank was right. By the time Gerard staggered off the stage, soaked in sweat, he felt fucking invincible. They all piled on top of each other in the hallway in an ecstatic huddle - even Matt had lightened up during the set, though he and Frank avoided each other - and dragging all of their shit out to the parking lot after felt half-real, like a dream. Gerard barely noticed the cold, though he did put his jacket back on after finding it flung behind an amp.

On one trip back to Ray’s car, lugging a hardshell suitcase full of cables, Frank tackled him in a hug, and Gerard had to let the suitcase crash down into a puddle of slush to catch him, laughing so hard his stomach hurt. “Motherfucker - you could warn me, Frank!”

“You were _incredible_,” Frank crowed in his ear. “I knew you would be!”

“That was nuts,” Gerard agreed, grinning, and then had to let go when they started tipping off-balance so they wouldn’t get soaked in disgusting half-melted parking lot snow. Just before they separated, he felt Frank mash his lips into the hollow space just behind his ear - just as quickly, he skipped off to grab something else from inside. For the rest of the night, Gerard caught himself touching his fingers to the spot over and over with a stupid, dreamy smile on his face.

* * *

They played four more shows at Karman Bar that month, and the crowd got steadily bigger each time, until one night Gerard looked out and couldn’t even see the back of the room for all the bodies. It reminded him of the Six Hell Slaughter show from back in September, wall to wall and noisy.

“Whoa, shit, there’s a lot of you tonight! You all bring your friends like I told you to?” A loud cheer went up from the house, and Gerard grinned. He popped the mic off the stand and twined the cord a couple times around his arm. “Hell yeah, you did. Thanks for coming out, everyone, we are My Chemical Romance and we’re gonna have a good fuckin’ time.”

The bigger crowd made a huge difference in how they played. Gerard felt like a live wire, especially when they played Turnstiles and the entire bar erupted singing along with him, which surprised the shit out of all of them. Gerard was so stunned he fumbled the words and had to pick back up on the next line. They all went a little faster, a little harder than usual, but Frank dialed it all the way up to literal destruction. Casualties included Frank’s mic stand, which he flung into Matt’s set up (royally pissing him off in the process), his E string, and Mikey’s glasses. That one was partly Frank’s fault and partly Gerard’s - Frank’s for knocking them off Mikey’s face, and Gerard for accidentally stepping on them. During Bring More Knives, Frank leapt into the mosh pit and disappeared until the end of the song - when he came back, he had a bloody nose and no guitar. It emerged from the pit, intact, after a couple seconds, and when Frank raised it above his head in triumph the whole place exploded with noise.

In short, it was the best goddamn night of Gerard’s whole life.

They were the last to play, so instead of loading out straight away they converged on the bar, where all Gerard had to do was think the word beer and another bottle would appear in his hand. Faces and voices swirled in a carousel around the five of them (four of them, Gerard noticed after several goes - Frank had vanished again). He was starting to lose track of which conversations he was having with which people and in what order, when Geoff Fucking Rickly materialized on the bar stool to his right and beamed at him like they were best friends.

“Yo. That was a killer set. You guys fuckin’ shred,” he said, and Gerard just sort of blinked at him with what he was sure was a cartoon of a dumbfounded look on his face until Matt, standing at Gerard’s shoulder, stepped in with his hand out.

“Geoff, right? I’m Matt. This is Gerard.” They all shook hands, which was businesslike and totally weird. “Thanks for being here, dude, we watched you guys at Big Daddy’s not too long ago to take notes.”

Geoff laughed. “Well, I’m honored, but _that_ was something else. You especially, my friend - was it Gerard?” Gerard just nodded. “You’re probably the best new vocalist in Jersey right now, man. That was unbelievable. That energy? So fuckin’ raw, dude. Awesome.”

“Thanks,” said Gerard, weakly, and managed a wobbly grin. “That means a lot, man, thank you.”

Geoff traded a bill for a bottle, stood up, and leaned in. “Hey, listen. I brought my friend Alex with me, Alex Saavedra, you know him?”

Matt and Gerard exchanged a silent look of mutual incredulity - Alex Saavedra was here! He saw them play! Holy shit! - and promptly played it as cool as they could. “Not personally,” said Matt, while Gerard chugged the rest of his beer.

“We wanna talk to you guys, if you’ve got time. Kevin’s letting us use his office so we don’t have to sit out here yelling at each other. You in?”

“Yes,” Gerard said instantly, and Matt gave him a subtle dig to the ribcage with his elbow, probably because there was some kind of etiquette Gerard was infringing on, but hello, Geoff Fucking Rickly and the fucking founder of fucking Eyeball Records wanted to “talk” to them? They both knew what that meant. They did need to grab the other three, though. “We just gotta track down the rest of our band, if that’s cool.”

“Totally. Just come straight back when you find them.” Geoff lifted two fingers off the neck of his beer bottle in salute, and headed off. As soon as he was out of earshot, Gerard clutched at Matt’s arm and all but shrieked with excitement.

“Otter! Holy shit!”

Matt tried to push him off, but he was clearly just as stoked, an uncharacteristic grin spread wide on his face. “I know, I know! Don’t cream your panties yet, though, nothing’s in writing. You look for Mikey, I’ll look for Ray. And, you know. If Frank pops up, I guess he can come too, even if he is an asshole who owes me a new snare.”

Gerard resisted the urge to roll his eyes at this. They separated; Gerard found Mikey without too much trouble, although dragging him away from the redheaded woman whose mouth he was so enthusiastically spelunking was a challenge. He protested the entire time Gerard pulled him to the wall, but pulled an almost instantaneous about-face when Gerard told him what was going on. Finding Frank was harder. He wasn’t in the bathroom, or outside when he checked the first time. Finally, after about twenty minutes of increasingly frantic searching, he ran out to the parking lot again and spotted him smoking a cigarette on a parking block. “There you are!” he panted, jogging up. “Where’d you go? We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Frank said nothing. Gerard stopped, still out of breath, and looked down at him in confusion. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Then he looked closer, startling when the penny dropped. His nose wasn’t bleeding, but he had a cut on his cheek, and his hair was definitely a lot longer than it had been earlier that night. He’d changed clothes, too; Gerard had never seen them before, an oversized striped sweater pushed up to his elbows and khaki cargo pants that were stained at the knees with some kind of reddish dust. “Oh.”

Frank took a slow drag and gave a sort of absent nod without meeting Gerard’s curious stare. “Don’t ask.”

Gerard shifted from foot to foot. “I won’t. Um. You should come inside. I think Eyeball wants to sign us.”

At that, Frank finally turned up his head to look at him - his eyes glittered with a strange, hard-edged turbulence, an emotion Gerard couldn’t identify. “Yeah? Already?”

That…wasn’t the response he’d expected. He furrowed his brow. “Uh. I guess? What do you mean, already?”

“Never mind.” Frank crushed out his cigarette against the parking block and left the filter in a puddle there. He pushed himself to his feet - with a wince, Gerard noticed, but didn’t comment on it - and stalked past Gerard toward the back door. He stopped just short of going inside, did a sort of weird full-body shudder, and then rushed back to Gerard with this look of _agony_ on his face that startled him even more than the way Frank shoved him once against the shoulders, hard. “You _idiot_,” he said, strangled. “You make it so hard sometimes, do you know that?”

Gerard, stunned, tried to stammer out, “What the fuck are you _talking_ about,” but he only got out the first few syllables before Frank was storming off again, muttering furiously under his breath, and Gerard had to rush to catch up to him. “Frank, what the hell?”

“Not now,” Frank growled, and ripped open the back door. “We’re getting signed, right? I made it back in time for the big event, that’s the important thing. Just,” he said suddenly, and turned to Gerard with huge, pleading eyes, at odds with the rage still writ large into the scowl curling his lip. “Just tell me you’re okay right now. You’re okay, right?”

“‘Course,” said Gerard, freaked out. “Course I am, Frank. Jesus Christ, what happened?”

But Frank just shook his head. “I told you not to ask.” He blinked into the hallway, and then reached out and wrapped his fingers so tightly around Gerard’s wrist, it hurt. “Come on. Signing. Eyeball. We’re gonna do this, so help me.”

Gerard, too alarmed to fight back, let himself be dragged along the hall back toward the office. In the dim blue light, he thought he saw tears streaking down Frank’s face, but he said nothing.


	11. Lye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank was going to _die,_ holy shit, his chest felt like it would explode it was so full. This adorable motherfucker. This poor, lonely kid.

APRIL 10TH, 1999 - 12:54 AM

Frank landed in a dark closet that reeked of turpentine and immediately crashed into a rack of something metal - paint cans, it turned out, when one of them lost their lid upon hitting the floor and splattered him up to his chest. Awesome. This repair was also going to involve raiding someone’s wardrobe, apparently. He left the rack where it was and groped around until he found the door handle. The hallway beyond was empty. Not unexpected, since it was nearly one in the morning.

He guessed he’d been gone about three months, give or take, since leaving their fifth show at Karman Bar. They agreed to adjust his repair time budget after last time, when he pointed out it was Their fault he was late to a major event in Gerard’s timeline and how was he supposed to maintain proper guardianship over him if They were gonna fuck Frank over on scheduling? But of course, asking Them for anything was like asking a favor from the fucking Fae. Beware ye seeker. He got his extra time, along with three times as much work. This was his - ninth? Tenth? Felt like his tenth - repair this cycle. None of them had even been for Gerard, just repairs from the 9/11 fallout. He’d been all over Jersey, New York, half the fucking Northeast probably. Just before coming here he was in California, which had been a nice change. Kept a girl named Charlotte from dropping out of Berkeley and running away with her dumbass boyfriend to live in a van. Young love was cool and all, but she would make a much better conservationist than hippie.

According to his Them phone, he had about an hour left until he’d be missed at Karman. He hoped this repair would be quick, but he set an alarm for half an hour before just in case. There were no instructions for this one, just a location. _40° 44’ 31.4088” N, 74° 0’ 10.5912” W. Fifth floor, studio block. _All he could tell from that was it was somewhere in New York City; he wasn’t sure of the cross streets. It made him uneasy. When it came to Them, mysteries were bad. He didn’t like not knowing what he was walking into, or what he was supposed to fix when he got there. Most of the time it meant seeing something he absolutely didn’t want to.

It looked like a school so far. He peeked through one of the hall doors - a long room with several workbenches and a bunch of weird short desks lined up in rows topped with what looked like wide, shallow bowls. Dropcloths covered the concrete floor. The shelves on the far wall from the door were loaded with funky looking vases and sculptures - oh, this was a ceramics room. Right. He had fuzzy memories of a ceramics class in college, or maybe high school, where he’d made a bong shaped like a dick, creatively nicknamed the Dong Bong. He was pretty sure he failed that assignment. Probably the class, too. He stepped back from the door and kept walking until he found elevators. This was the first floor: SVA - SCULPTURE CENTER.

SVA. He stared at the sign for a beat while a bell went off in his head. Where did he know that from? SVA, School…something, what was VA, Veteran Affairs? He cast about the hall for more information, and lit upon a rug on the floor. SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS, NEW YORK, EST. 1947. The blood drained from his face. “Shit,” he hissed, and slammed his hand against the up button over and over. “Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck, come _on_!”

He gave up on the elevator after about ten seconds and went for the stairwell instead. Why hadn’t They told him it was a Gerard repair? What the hell were They hiding? He sprinted up the stairs as fast as his lungs would let him - by the time he staggered through the fifth floor access, his chest was on fire and he was gasping for air like he was having a fucking asthma attack. Jesus, he was out of shape. He collapsed back against the wall to catch his breath and glanced around the hall. Studio block, studio block, what the fuck was a studio block? All the doors on this floor were identical, and none of them were labeled because of-fucking-course not. Frank took off at a jog, craning to look through each door as he passed. Most were dark, obviously empty. He skidded to a rough halt at a lit-up window; he peered through the glass and saw a chaotic semicircle of tables and stools flung haphazardly aside. At the center, a figure in a black long-sleeved shirt and jeans was huddled in the middle of the floor over a huge sheet of paper, head bent, chin length dark hair covering their face. They had a work light on a tripod angled over the paper, and a plastic tub of water off to their left. Was it Gerard? He couldn’t tell. Only one way to know for certain - he scrabbled for the handle and ripped open the door.

The person startled, and their head jerked up - sure enough, there was Gerard. He looked different with longer hair; more like himself, somehow. There was a paintbrush between his teeth and a utility knife in his right hand, poised over his left wrist, sleeve pushed up to his elbow. That was fucking alarming of its own merit, but what made Frank’s whole body go cold was the look on Gerard’s face: hollow and haunted in a way that ricocheted Frank back into a long-ago high school class on religious art, where they’d studied paintings of saints getting martyred. In almost every painting, they had their head tilted up toward heaven, and they all had an expression just like Gerard’s now. Frank froze where he was. The door clicked shut behind him, and in the oppressive silence that followed, he heard his own breath get even shallower. 

“I thought you weren’t coming,” said Gerard. His voice was flat, and awkward around the paintbrush handle.

Frank glanced down at the knife and back to Gerard’s face. “You were expecting me?”

Gerard spat the paintbrush onto the paper. It rolled in a semicircle and stopped when it ran into his left knee. “I remember you,” he continued, oblivious. His hands were shaking, a fine tremor that Frank couldn’t see so much as hear in the way the utility knife’s razor rattled inside the metal sheath. Gerard never took his eyes off him. Frank stepped forward. “You saved Mikey. When we were little.”

“You should put that down,” Frank said. He edged past a table into the circle he assumed Gerard had created. Besides the tragic expression, something was wrong with Gerard's eyes, something he couldn’t place until he carefully knelt on the opposite side of the paper from him. His pupils, Frank realized, were enormous - his irises were practically swallowed, just a sliver of hazel ringed around shining black. “Did you take something?”

Gerard’s tongue darted out over his chapped lips. “Must be my turn. That’s why you’re here now, right?” He looked back down at his hands in a way that made Frank think he wasn’t really seeing them at all. “I had a feeling like you would show up. Don’t know why.”

“Gerard,” Frank urged, and Gerard peeked up at him. Water pooled along his lower lashes and his lip trembled in time with his fingers. Frank reached out a hand over the paper, palm up. “You’re not thinking straight. Hand over the knife and let’s talk.”

He didn’t move. A few tears spilled over and down his cheeks, and he sucked in a shuddering breath, but the knife stayed where it was. “Tell me your name.”

Frank swallowed. “If I tell you, will you give me the knife?”

“It’s not fair that you know my name and I don’t know yours,” Gerard insisted, voice cracking on the last word. “You want me to talk to you, you can at least tell me who you are.”

He held up his hands, palms out in supplication. “Okay, cool. I’m Frank. Nice to see you again, Gee, it’s been awhile. Can I please have the knife now?”

Gerard still didn’t move. His eyes dropped to the paper, roving over it like there was an image already there that Frank couldn’t see. “I - I can’t. I need it to do the painting.”

Frank glanced around, but all he saw was the canvas, brush, and water tub. “You’re painting? With…oh.” He eyed the water tub with fresh dread. “Dude, you go to art school. There’s tons of paint lying around, look, I’m fuckin’ covered in it,” and he gestured down at his ruined clothes. “You don’t have to - come on, give me the knife, let’s go find you some red paint instead.”

Gerard shrank back, holding both arms close to his chest and shaking his head. “It has to be - I have to do this. It feels right.” His breathing came ragged, and he dropped his gaze back to the paper, and then to the knife. “I figured it out at the park, you know? There’s that one sculpture in Madison Square and I talked to it for awhile. Not out loud or anything. Just kind of in my head. But while I was talking to it I realized, like, this all is temporary anyway, this version of me, you know? And I don’t have to put up with it. I can just - just become pure energy again, and I can come back as a tree or something when I’m ready, but I don’t have to be miserable all the time.” The tears were coming thick and fast now, and he hiccuped through his words, and Frank _ached_ to see him like this. “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me that I can’t just be happy and normal like fucking everyone else, but now I understand what I have to do to fix it.”

Frank stared at him across the paper, sour panic rising in the back of his throat. Fuck. Fuck. This wasn’t just Gerard having a bad trip. This was actively suicidal Gerard _facilitated_ by a bad trip. He’d talked more than one stranger off the ledge, but this wasn’t a stranger. What should he do? “Gee,” he tried, but it got stuck, so instead he reached for Gerard’s arm and cleared his throat. “Gerard, just let me - “

“No!” Gerard shot up and away, reeling backward toward the street-facing windows. Frank clambered to his feet as fast as he could to follow. “I don’t know what the fuck you are, Frank - some weird fucking guardian angel vision, I dunno, but don’t you _fucking_ dare try to stop me! I’m so sick and tired of fighting with myself every goddamn day to keep going. What the fuck do I keep going _for_? I’m just keeping myself alive for the sake of it! How fucking pathetic is that?”

“There’s nothing pathetic about being alive!” Frank lunged forward, but Gerard pressed the knife to his throat in a flash, and Frank stopped short as his stomach dropped. Fuck. He swallowed and help up his hands again. “Listen,” he said in a low, unsteady voice. “This isn’t you, alright? You don’t want to kill yourself, you’re just having a bad trip. I can help you. Put the fucking knife down.”

“I don’t _want_ you to help me,” Gerard spat. His chest heaved with shallow, hysterical breaths, and his eyes were wild, and Frank finally realized with a horrible sinking feeling that he was well past the point where talking would make a difference. Plan B, then. He faked turning back to the abandoned paint station, waiting for Gerard to drop his guard; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gerard’s arm start to fall away from his throat, and he seized the opportunity to rush him. On instinct, Gerard’s hands flew up - Frank felt the knife slash across his cheek, just a kiss of the blade before he threw Gerard onto the floor. They struggled briefly while Frank wrestled for the knife, and after several tries he finally got hold of the sheath and ripped it from Gerard’s hand, chucking it across the room before pinning Gerard’s wrists to the concrete with both hands and all his weight.

“You son of a bitch,” he panted. “Damn it, Gerard, why would you do that? Why the hell would you ever do that to me, you stupid motherfucker?”

Gerard looked up at him, dazed and livid, and then all of a sudden the fight went out of him and he let out a horrible, desolate sob. Hearing it broke Frank’s heart. He swallowed the flood of tears that rose in his throat in response and let up his hold on Gerard’s wrists, shifting his weight onto his knees, and took both Gerard’s hands in his own to coax him upright. It didn’t take much persuasion. His head tipped forward onto Frank’s collarbone, and Frank gathered him in his arms. “Easy,” he murmured, smoothing Gerard’s hair back behind his ears. “Easy, sweetheart. Just breathe, you’ll be okay.”

He could still feel his heart pounding behind his ears. Christ. All this adrenaline was going to give him a fucking heart attack. Frank forced himself to take a couple deep breaths too, focused on normalizing his pulse again. It took him a couple moments to realize that Gerard was trying to tell him something. 

“What?”

Gerard coughed and turned his head so his mouth was clear of Frank’s shoulder. “I’m sor-sorry for cutting you. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know. It’s alright, just a scratch.” Frank rubbed his palm up and down Gerard’s shoulder blade in what he hoped was a soothing way. “You did scare the living hell out of me, though. Holding a fucking utility knife to your own throat? Talk about pants-shitting, Jesus.”

Gerard didn’t laugh, but he did seem to be calming down, the wracking sobs quieting into wet sips of breath. Frank tilted his head back to stare up at the exposed wooden beams framing the ceiling. He now understood why Gerard needed a guardian. Clearly the bastard was a hazard magnet. It was awhile before Gerard spoke again, maybe five or so minutes passing in silence, and then he took a breath and Frank glanced down expectantly. “I thought I was hallucinating when you showed up,” Gerard admitted, his voice raw. 

Frank smiled a little. “Did you.”

“Yeah.” Gerard sat back then, on his haunches with his hands tucked together between his thighs. His eyelashes clung together at the corners. “Chris said the crazy intense visuals were a myth, but I never tried DMT before and after all the other shit that happened to me tonight…” He lifted his chin to peer at Frank. “Plus the last time I saw you, I was nine, and you look exactly the same.”

“Well. I didn’t say I _wasn’t_ a hallucination.” That’s most likely what They would turn him into in Gerard’s memory of this, anyway. And so long as Gerard never tripped again, he’d probably believe it.

“You tackled me,” Gerard pointed out.

Frank shrugged. “Edward Norton really believed it was Brad Pitt beating the shit out of him in _Fight Club._ You never know.”

Gerard wrinkled his brow at him in confusion. “_Fight Club_, like, the book? When did Brad Pitt come up?”

Oops. Apparently this was pre-_Fight Club_ 1999\. Frank just made a noncommittal face and glossed over it like he usually did. “The important thing is, you’re not bleeding all over a canvas, or the floor. Doesn’t matter who stopped you, just that you stopped.” His Them phone went off in his pocket. Annoyed, he slapped it to shut it off before remembering _why_ it was going off. “Oh, fuck.”

“What _was_ that?” said Gerard, as Frank started pushing himself up to his feet. “Do you have an alarm in your pocket?”

“No. Yes. Sort of.” Frank snuck a look at the screen - twenty-nine minutes. “It’s…not important. Um, listen, Gee.” He twisted around to face Gerard again. “I can’t stick around much longer, but I’m not just gonna abandon you, alright? I want to make sure you get somewhere safe. DMT’s a hell of a drug to be on by yourself.” 

Gerard drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He nodded without meeting Frank’s eye, shoulders hunched. Frank felt his expression soften watching him - God, he looked so miserable, it made Frank’s chest hurt. He closed the gap between them, just a step or two, and crouched down in front of him with his hand outstretched. Gerard looked at it dolefully, then at Frank.

“Come on,” said Frank, and waggled his fingers. “Let’s go for a walk. Get out of this studio. How the fuck did you get in here, anyway?”

Gerard gave him a skeptical look. “Could ask you the same question.” He pulled his sleeve down over his hand and wiped his face clean before pushing it back and taking Frank’s hand at last. Frank helped haul him up, and gave him a cursory dusting off. “Chris is a ceramics TA. I still have his keys from earlier tonight.”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “I think this Chris dude and I need to have a chat. What’s his deal? He gave you DMT and then bailed? That’s shitty.”

Gerard’s cheeks turned pink, and he gazed down at the floor as his eyes refilled, to Frank’s concern. “Um. He’s my, um. We’re - well, we _were_, until tonight.” He sniffled. “He made me leave his apartment, after he…that’s why I went to the park.”

Frank couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing, so he didn’t respond right away - just gaped at Gerard in increasing astonishment while a low grade fury built in the pit of his stomach. “He did _what?” _Frank managed to bite out at last. “He broke up with you and kicked you out while you were still fucking tripping?”

Gerard, still avoiding his gaze, nodded and bit his lip. He brushed at his cheeks with the heel of his palm. “It’s, um, it’s been a pretty shitty birthday.”

“Excuse me?” said Frank, too loud, piling his hands on top of his head. “Birthday? It’s your motherfucking - oh, Gerard, dude.” Oh, _fuck_ no. To hell with keeping good time, Frank was gonna find this motherfucker and rip his dick off. And then set it on fire and feed the ashes to a cockroach. He pressed his fist against his mouth hard to avoid saying that out loud, but couldn’t stop an incensed scoff from escaping. “Yeah, I’m gonna have words with that guy. Um, wow. Not that you need to hear this right now, and I’m sorry, but you are way better off without that flaming douche of a human being in your life, Gee.”

To Frank’s surprise, Gerard giggled, though a few stray tears escaped. “You could be right.”

“I know I’m right! _Fuck_ that guy,” Frank exclaimed. Gerard eyed him with a watery smile as Frank paced a tight circle in vehement amazement. “Well, I’m sure as shit not bringing you back there. He can fish his key out of the Hudson later when we chuck it off a fuckin’ bridge.”

Gerard burst out with a shocked laugh that made Frank grin in turn with the suddenness of it, and they looked at each other for a second before bursting into fresh giggles together, Gerard pressing his hands over his face. Frank shook his head and let his arms drop to his sides again.

“Christ Almighty.” He checked his Them phone again. Twenty-four minutes. “I’m sorry, dude, I wish I had more time to salvage your birthday for you.”

Gerard pulled a face. “I kind of just want it to be over, if I’m honest.” He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and glanced around the room, wincing as he surveyed the mess of classroom furniture. “Maybe I should…pick this up, before we go.”

Frank helped him set the studio to rights again, dragging the tables into their regular places and stacking the stools on top. Gerard seemed a little embarrassed by the whole thing; he didn’t talk much except to give Frank direction about where to put things, and when he eventually found the utility knife where it had ended up under a stool, he stared at it for a long time with his face turning slowly redder until Frank scooped it up without comment and shoved it into his back pocket. They stashed the tripod work light in the corner with a couple of identical ones and Frank dumped the water tub out in a sink while Gerard looked on and fidgeted. They left the paper on a table - “It’s Arches, I feel bad wasting it,” Gerard explained, and Frank pretended that meant something to him and nodded - and Gerard grabbed a leather racer jacket hung up on the back of the door before they went out into the hallway.

“Is there someone else in the city you can stay with tonight?” Frank asked him, as Gerard fumbled with a key ring on his belt outside the studio door. “Friends, family, classmates?”

“I think so,” said Gerard, a little absently, as he flicked through keys. “I’ll have to call around.”

Fifteen minutes. No getting around it, he was gonna be late. Again. Frank ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “Well, I’m not taking you back to Fuckwad’s place, and I’m definitely not leaving you on your own, so it’s that or I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Gerard’s head shot up, and he dropped the keys on the floor. “Please no,” he begged, and flattened his hands over his mouth with an imploring look at Frank. “All my senior projects are due in the next two weeks and if I don’t turn them in they won’t let me graduate. And my parents will flip the fuck out.”

Frank folded his arms over his chest. “Do you still feel like you want to kill yourself?” Gerard shook his head, wide-eyed. “Are you sure?” A nod. Frank looked him up and down, squinting, and then sighed. “Alright. But you gotta have somewhere to go in the next ten minutes, or I won’t have a choice. Deal?”

Relieved, Gerard gathered up the keys and nodded. “Deal.”

While Gerard made phone calls, Frank went in search of clothes that weren’t splattered with paint, and eventually found a bank of lockers on the first floor full of apparent ceramics work clothes. Almost all of them were stained with clay dust to some degree, but it was better than paint, and after some digging he scrounged up a pair of khakis in his size. He slipped his Them phone and reset watch into one of the thigh pockets, but left the utility knife in his ruined jeans, and he was pulling a gigantic striped sweater over his head when Gerard came to find him again.

“Find a spot?” Frank asked, tugging the hem down around his hips. It took Gerard a couple seconds to respond; Frank looked up, and caught Gerard staring at him. Gerard flushed and shoved his fingers against his mouth. “You okay?”

Gerard nodded, mute, and gnawed at the skin around his thumbnail while studiously avoiding Frank’s eye. “My friend Yvonne’s girlfriend Lindsey said I can crash on their couch. Um.” His eyes darted up timidly to look at Frank for a nanosecond before returning to the linoleum. “Your tattoos are cool.”

Ah. That explained the sudden shyness. Frank pursed his lips to hide a smile. “Thanks. How are you feeling?”

“Tired, mostly. Kind of frayed.” Gerard ran a hand through his hair a couple times. “I think I came most of the way down, it’s not supposed to last very long.”

Frank tossed his old clothes into the locker and shut it before crossing to Gerard and taking his face between his hands to inspect his pupils. Gerard went stock still as soon as Frank’s fingers touched his skin, but his eyes were back to normal - Frank nodded, satisfied, and let go of him. “How far are Yvonne and Lindsey?”

Gerard blinked owlishly at him for a couple seconds before he swallowed hard and said, “T-ten minutes or so. Walking. Are you gonna, um. Come with me?”

“Yep! In the immortal words of the Velvet Underground, _Iiiiii’m sticking with you,_” Frank sang, and bumped Gerard with his shoulder with a grin. “I’m not gonna ditch you, remember? Not till your friends tap in for me, anyway, cause then I do have to leave.” They made their way toward the front door, passing the same ceramics classroom Frank saw earlier, and he leaned to look through the door glass with renewed interest. “Hey, does Fuckwad keep any of his shit in here? Got a hankering to smash some pottery all of a sudden.”

Gerard snorted, sweeping a lock of hair behind his ear. “I think he’d definitely know I was involved if you did that.” Frank feigned exaggerated disappointment as he pulled away and followed Gerard down a couple short hallways before stepping onto the sidewalk on West 16th. It was cold enough out that Frank could see his breath, and he huffed some experimental clouds while Gerard locked up the front doors. Walking would keep him warm, but he sort of wished he had a jacket. Shoving his hands into the hip pockets of his new stolen pants turned up an odd little square of fabric, slightly stiff with clay residue, and a pack of Newports with two cigarettes left and a mini Bic tucked beside them.

“Fuck yeah, score,” he said, and immediately lit one of them before offering the other to Gerard, who wrinkled his nose.

“Um, no thanks. I’m still kind of frying.” He clipped his key ring back onto his belt loop and then seemed to get sort of stuck for a moment, blinking down at the concrete with his brows drawn together. Frank watched him warily over his cigarette - was he about to freak out again? Bolt into the night? He didn’t have time to chase him down, he’d have to call Them for backup and then he’d be screwed. Gerard shifted his weight back and forth a few times, frowning, and then gave his head a violent shake. “Fuck,” he said at last, with feeling. “Fuck, tonight has been so weird.”

Frank offered a smile. “You said it. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Gerard glanced at him, gave a jerky nod, and took off down the sidewalk heading east with Frank trailing behind. He didn’t say another word the entire way; it worried Frank a little, but he decided not to press it. Maybe Gerard was just processing. Come-downs were a bitch sometimes. They walked down to the West Village in silence, Gerard sneaking glances at Frank whenever he thought Frank wasn’t looking while Frank pretended not to notice, and finally Gerard stopped outside a red building on the corner of 4th and 11th. He looked at the orange-lit front stoop, then at Frank, who smiled; before he could blink, Gerard had him wrapped in a tight hug that almost knocked the wind out of him.

“Whoa,” he wheezed, and giggled, patting Gerard’s back awkwardly as his arms were pinned to his sides. “Give a guy a warning, Gee.”

“I don’t care if you’re real or not,” Gerard said fiercely into Frank’s shoulder, and Frank sobered.Oh. “If I’ve been hallucinating this whole time, if this is all happening in my head, it doesn’t matter. You’re real enough that I’m not dead. Thank you.”

Frank swallowed, hard, and returned the hug as best he could. “Just doing my job. You’ll see my ugly mug again, probably the next time you decide to do something stupid and dangerous, you maniac.”

“Good to know.” Gerard let go of him and stepped back, a small grin on his lips clashing with fresh tears on his cheeks. He wiped them away before raising one hand in farewell. “See you on my next bender, then?”

“Oh, you better hope not, or I’ll kick your ass instead,” Frank said, and Gerard laughed and walked up the front stoop. “I mean it! No benders.”

“Yeah, whatever, Mom.” Gerard started to press a button on the intercom, but stopped; he turned his head, and then suddenly rushed back down the stoop and grabbed Frank’s hand. “On the off chance that you’re not a figment of my imagination, here,” he said, a little breathless, and shoved Frank’s sleeve up to the elbow before digging a blue marker out of his jacket and uncapping it with his teeth. “This is my phone number. I live in Jersey and I don’t have a cell phone, so you know. Weekends are best.” He scrawled the same number he’d give Frank again in two years on the inside of Frank’s forearm as he talked, and wrote ‘GERARD :)’ under it in his drafting-style handwriting. “Weekdays I’m holed up on the second floor of the main building on East 23rd. Um. The main SVA building, that is. If you ever wanted to, uh, find me.” He gingerly pulled Frank’s sleeve back down over the ink and, after capping it, stuck his marker behind his ear, and then looked up at Frank through his lashes. 

Frank was going to _die_, holy shit, his chest felt like it would explode it was so full. This adorable motherfucker. This poor, lonely kid. The _smiley face, _for crying out loud. Frank had never wanted to be late coming back from a repair so badly in his life. He wanted to hug him and never let go. He wanted to write a whole album about the expression on Gerard’s face right now, wide open and hopeful and so sad. He wanted to find that Chris bastard and chuck _him _into the Hudson for daring to treat Gerard like he was anything short of the most beautiful man in the entire world. Frank had to clear his throat before he could trust his voice to speak again. “Got it,” he managed, and grinned at him. “Weekends for best results. Thanks.”

Gerard beamed at him, and let go of his hand. He started to move toward the stairs again, but Frank had a sudden thought, and snagged his jacket before he could get away.

“Wait, I have something for you.” He reached up and took the marker, then Gerard’s wrist, and wrote on the back of his hand: ‘FRANK WAS HERE.’ And after some consideration, he added a little smiley face, too. “If it’s still there tomorrow, then I must be real, right?” he explained, and slipped the marker back into its new spot behind Gerard’s ear with a smile. “It’ll wash off easier than a kiss-shaped lye burn, anyway.”

Gerard stared down at his hand with round eyes. “Yeah,” he said faintly, and looked up at Frank again. A stray piece of hair fell across his face. “Um.”

They stood together in the warm light from the top of the steps, Frank’s fingers loosely wrapped around Gerard’s wrist, and all around them was a hush like somebody holding their breath. Sounds of the city still hummed from the street corners, but it was white noise, distant and indistinct. Frank felt it like a rest between a tense chord and its resolution. Anticipation built along all his nerves - of what, he had no idea. He looked at Gerard, the shadows in the hollows of his cheeks and the gentle curve of his mouth.

A car horn blared down the block. Just like that, the spell was broken; Frank blinked like he was waking up, and let go of Gerard’s wrist. “I’m running late,” he said, apologetic, and bit his lip. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Gerard, looking slightly crestfallen, gave a slow nod. He stepped onto the first stair hesitantly, and cut a glance at Frank. “I’ll see you later, though?”

Frank managed a weak smile. “Count on it.” He took a couple steps back, watching Gerard walk up to the intercom and hit the second button; the door buzzed a few seconds later. “Oh, hey, Gee,” he called, remembering, and Gerard turned in the doorway. “Don’t forget to lose Fuckwad’s keys for him.”

He couldn’t help grinning as the despondency melted off Gerard’s face, and he laughed. “First order of business tomorrow,” he said, and waved.

Frank still felt out of sorts as he set his watch and ducked down an alley to use it; it wasn’t until he dropped into the parking lot at Karman Bar and perched on a parking block to smoke away the post-reset queasiness that it occurred to him why. Gerard in the present day had no idea who Frank was when they’d met; he’d just been the new guy at Gerard’s favorite coffee shop with interesting tattoos. No glimmer of recognition, no ‘have we met somewhere,’ nothing. Which meant that They’d totally wiped any trace of the night from Gerard’s memory, or at least the parts with Frank in them, and nothing Frank had done that night mattered. It could have been anybody - hell, it could have been Fuckwad in that studio with him, it didn’t make any fucking difference. Yet another thing They’d taken from him. By the time Gerard found him, Frank was spoiling for a fight. He knew taking it out on him wouldn’t help, but he felt too raw to restrain himself.

Later, after making his excuses and bailing on the post-unofficial-signing celebrations, Frank found an empty notebook after poking around his apartment and wrote down everything he could remember about the repair while it was still fresh. If all They were leaving him was memories now, then he was gonna hang onto them with both hands. He wrote about everything They’d changed, or wiped, or erased; everything about Jamia, his old life, about the 9/11 fuck-up, the kiss he didn’t remember. The sun was coming up when he finished - he tossed it into the bedside drawer with the watch and Them phone and locked it.

In the shower he took before he crawled into bed and slept through most of the next day and evening, he scrubbed Gerard’s phone number off his arm, but kept the name and smiley face intact and retraced it when he dried off.


	12. Chicago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You must think I’m a shitty friend if you believe for a second that I’d just let some dickhead spew all that hateful shit about you and _not_ relieve them of their teeth.”

Swift fly the years. After their fifth Karman Bar show, the band picked up gigs all over New Jersey, in bars and clubs and basements from Atlantic City to Newark. In between, they wrote songs, and rewrote songs, and argued over the rewrites, and wrote some more; every couple weeks or so Geoff would drop in on practices and weigh in about what they’d coughed up. Mikey dropped out of school just before they officially signed with Eyeball, much to their parents’ chagrin - it wasn’t until both he and Gerard brought home a copy of their contract (that stated in no uncertain terms they would be getting paid in actual money) that their mom stopped giving Mikey shit about it all the time. Gerard felt sort of bad for him. After all, it wasn’t like they’d freaked out when Gerard decided to go to art school, and that was basically the same thing.

It became apparent as time went on and the band got bigger and busier that Frank was struggling to keep up. Not because he wasn’t good - he was _so good,_ holy shit, Gerard could not believe how lucky they were to have him - but because he was gone almost all the time. Gerard never saw him except at practices and shows, always running in at the last minute and disappearing as soon as they were done. He’d tried to catch Frank at his apartment at least a half a dozen times, just to see if he wanted to hang out without the pretext of the band, but he was never there. Every time Gerard _did _see him, he looked different. His hair was longer, or shorter; he’d have scruff where he’d been clean-shaven. New injuries would appear and heal in record time. Gerard sort of wondered if the other guys ever noticed, since no one else brought it up, and if they didn’t know, _how._ Because it was always obvious to Gerard when Frank had been traveling. (Not that the other guys knew the full story. Frank didn’t need to tell him that his disappearances for Them were meant to be a secret.)

Which gave rise to another problem: exactly how much Gerard had to cover for Frank when he was inevitably late to or missing from band stuff. Ray and Mikey didn’t seem too bothered about it usually, although Ray was such a consummate professional that running behind their scheduled times for shows clearly stressed him out. Otter, on the other hand, was pissed off and _vocal_ about it, bitching every chance he got about how Frank shouldn’t even _be_ in the band if he wasn’t gonna come to practice, and why was Frank the only one who didn’t have to be on time to gigs, and he knew rhythm guitarists who were just as good as Frank without having to wonder whether or not they’d show up. The constant complaining wore on Gerard to the point where he sort of dreaded going to practice and having to give some weak excuse as to why Frank wouldn’t be coming, again.

It only got worse when they finally got in to record Bullets in May. Frank was around for the first three days to track the parts he’d written, and then he vanished the entire rest of the week and a half they spent in New Windsor. After one billion unanswered phone calls and enough built-up anxiety to kill a horse, Gerard finally made up some bullshit story about Frank’s grandpa getting sick and then picked up a prescription for Xanax. Which, while mostly necessitated by Frank-related stress, also helped with the recurring pre-gig panic attacks - a win in Gerard’s book, because the amount of alcohol required just to get him on the stage without wanting to die was starting to get expensive.

Time got sort of weird over that summer. To Gerard, it was like when you fell asleep and woke up after what seemed like five seconds but was actually hours. One minute he was screaming in a recording booth in New York and his fucking tooth was killing him and Geoff was making him do another take, _again_, and the next minute he was groggily picking his head up off Mikey’s bony shoulder in the van somewhere in western Indiana. He didn’t remember nodding off. Endless cornfields had that effect on him, he’d learned - Jesus Christ, the cornfields. Gerard had never seen so much flat, green nothing in his life until this tour. It was like his brain couldn’t cope with the boredom and just shut off if he had to look at it for more than an hour. The absence of concrete and buildings more than a story high looked _wrong, _somehow. They’d been on highways that only had two lanes, and more than once, they’d gotten stuck behind a fucking _tractor. _It was nuts. Gerard couldn’t stand it.

They were pulling into a lonely Chevron just off an exit. It was the only manmade structure for miles, other than the road. Gerard lurched upright. “Are we stopping?” he yawned, and rubbed a hand over his jaw. He needed to shave, he felt like human sandpaper. “Didn’t we just get gas?”

“Princess Raymond has to piss, again,” said Otter from the driver’s seat. Ray shot him a black look from the passenger’s side.

“You didn’t actually let me in Cincinnati, asshole, if you recall. Maybe if you didn’t treat driving like a fucking military exercise I wouldn’t keep having this problem.”

Frank popped up in the backseat behind Gerard and Mikey. “I’m getting cigarettes.” Otter heaved an aggravated sigh, and Frank gave him the finger. “Yeah, blow me, _Matt._ I haven’t had one since last night and if I don’t get nicotine in me before we get to Chicago I’m gonna jump out the fucking window on the interstate.”

“No loss,” Otter replied airily, and yanked the parking brake. “Fine. Everyone out and do whatever you have to do, we’re not stopping again.” There was general complaint from the rest of the van, and Otter turned in his seat to glare at them all. “You fuckers want to get to Chicago on time or not?”

Mikey powered off his GameBoy with a silent eye roll, and threw open the van door to spill sullenly into the baking late August afternoon. Gerard recoiled from the blast of heat like Gollum. “Gross,” he whined, fumbling his sunglasses out of his hoodie pocket before following suit after Mikey. Behind him, Frank rolled over the top of the middle seat and crashed into the bottom cushion shoulder-first, kicking the back of Otter’s headrest as he went, and swore it was an accident when Otter snapped at him. They bickered while Ray got out and stood next to Mikey with his arms crossed. The three of them observed the unfolding argument in silence, exchanging identical weary looks of exasperation. Frank and Otter had been at each other’s throats the entire tour, practically since the top of tour rendezvous in Elena’s driveway, and it was starting to wear on them all. Otter especially seemed to be on a hair trigger; some days all Frank had to do was cough, and Otter would start yelling at him. Gerard found himself playing peacekeeper most of the time just to keep them from actually killing one another.

“Should be a pleasant couple hours to Chicago,” Ray muttered, and headed inside. Mikey wasn’t far behind, saying something about batteries, and Gerard dragged his hands through his sweaty hair and walked to the edge of the parking lot. He was also craving nicotine, in a bad way, but he was out of both cigarettes and cash. He’d have to wait for Frank. Frank would let him steal one. He always did. For now, Gerard stretched his arms over his head, looked out over the - not corn, he didn’t think, but what the fuck else grew in huge plots like that? - whatever fields across the road, and tried to ignore the fight getting louder and more heated.

At last, Frank stormed out of the van and into the minimart, cramming both fists into the pockets of his camo shorts. Gerard heaved a sigh - of frustration or relief he wasn’t sure, maybe both - and paced in a little circle. All this arguing made him fucking anxious. He dug into his pocket for his Xanax and swallowed one dry, despairing a little at the realization that he only had four left. He didn’t know what happened, he’d refilled his prescription before they left Jersey and it should have lasted till the end of this month. Maybe he could visit a psychiatrist in Chicago, if they had time. If Otter would let him, he privately scoffed, and stowed the bottle. He flopped down on his back in a little strip of weedy grass littered with cigarette butts and snack wrappers.

He had his eyes closed when he heard footsteps approach, and then someone sat beside his head - he cracked one eye open and found Mikey with his arms wrapped around his knees. “Ray’s worried,” he told Gerard without preamble in a low voice. “Otter’s been telling him he’s gonna quit when we get back to Jersey if Frank’s staying in the band.”

“What?” Gerard shot upright too fast and had to blink the ensuing black spots out of his vision. “When?”

Mikey made an unhappy face. “Like, the whole time we’ve been on tour. He’s still pissed that Frank was only around to record two parts on Bullets.”

“Oh my God,” Gerard groaned, and pressed his hands over his face. “He couldn’t help it! And those were the only two parts he wrote anyway. What his his _damage?_ Why didn’t Ray say anything before now?”

“I guess he was waiting to see if they made nice once we got on the road.” Mikey pushed his glasses up his nose and shrugged. “You know Ray. He’s not gonna made waves if he doesn’t have to.”

Gerard watched as Frank and Ray walked out of the minimart together, engaged in what looked like an intense conversation; Frank scowled at something Ray said, retorted back with a vicious gesture toward the van, and then stalked off around the side of the building. Ray pinched the bridge of his nose, and then moved to follow him, until Otter stuck his head out the driver’s side window and yelled at Ray to get back in the fucking van, already. Gerard and Mikey looked at each other, and Mikey sighed, unfolding to stand before offering his hand to help Gerard up. “Least we’re going home after Chicago,” said Gerard, and swatted away the stray grass that clung to his wrinkled jeans. “I’m sure they’ll both chill out once we get a break from the van and we’re not, like, on top of each other all the time.”

Mikey stuck his hands in his pockets, and said nothing, but made a spidey-senses-detecting-bullshit face and raised his eyebrows at Gerard, who huffed.

“Thanks for your unbridled optimism as always, _Michael_.” Mikey didn’t respond, just rolled his eyes and headed for the van, and Gerard immediately felt like an asshole. He shouldn’t snap at him; it wasn’t like it was Mikey’s fault Frank and Otter fought all the time. Maybe the heat was making them all cranky. Gerard rubbed his temples, and shot a dark look up at the cloudless blue sky before he set off to find Frank. He probably wouldn’t want to talk to Gerard, either, but a cigarette would make them both feel less bitchy.

Except that Frank wasn’t there. Gerard, trying to tamp down the mortal panic that sprang up in his chest when he realized what was probably happening, did a lap around the minimart. No sign of Frank. _Fuck_. He couldn’t have gone back inside without Gerard seeing him, but Gerard checked anyway, even barged in on some guy taking a piss (who then called him a fairy, what a charmer) for the sake of being thorough. When he hurried back outside, swearing to himself, Ray took notice and got out of the van.

“What’s wrong? Where’s Frank?”

“Give me your phone,” said Gerard, breathless, and stuck his hand out. When Ray just gave him a baffled look, Gerard lunged and shoved his hand into Ray’s pocket, ignoring his protests as he punched in Frank’s number and pressed the phone to his ear so hard it hurt. “Son of a bitch,” he hissed when voicemail picked up, and when it beeped for a message he all but shouted, “You have five _fucking_ minutes to get back here,” and then hung up and slapped it back into Ray’s hand before shoving both hands into his hair and suppressing a frustrated scream. Really? Of all the times and places to disappear without warning, _here? _How the fuck was Gerard supposed to cover for him when they were all _waiting_ for him and there was fucking nowhere Frank could have gone except into a goddamn whatever-field? He kicked an empty cup across the asphalt and took a hard seat on the curb.

* * *

APRIL 15TH, 1982

Frank was definitely going to hell for this. Not that there weren’t a lot of other reasons he was going to hell, but this one deserved a place of honor among his many terrible accomplishments. As far as repairs went, it wasn’t conventional (or an especially good idea) but he was operating under a pretty strict time constraint and the important thing was that it worked.

He’d stuck to the pews for the most part. Not only because they were wood and they’d catch easier, although that was true. He just felt sort of weird about dumping lighter fluid on the altar. In all his violent fantasies of burning the motherfucker down when he’d been forced to sit through Mass at school, he’d pictured it all going up in a blaze of accelerant glory. He didn’t know why doing it in person made him hesitate. But in the end, he’d only poured a little of his last can over the altar linens and felt guilty about it the whole time. Everything else, though, the cheesy Easter decorations and piles of lilies arranged in crosses, those all got soaked. Strands of cardboard cartoon bunnies strung up between the pews along both sides of the aisle drooped with lighter fluid. The smell alone was enough to made Frank’s eyes water, despite the cloth he’d tied over his nose and mouth.

Their instructions had said _Do not, under any circumstances, allow Easter Mass to take place, _and Their coordinates brought him to this church near West Hudson Park that Frank didn’t remember from his former timeline at all. Frank had no idea what would happen if Mass _did _go through and no time to ask. No way was anything happening here today, though. Burning down the whole church was kind of inelegant, but needs must. He couldn’t stick around and do, like, a big dramatic objection or whatever. He had a tour to get back to.

Frank tossed all six empty lighter fluid cans into the first pews and headed up the aisle toward the front doors. Weak spring dawn light streamed through the stained glass windows above his head and cast ghostly facsimiles of their depictions on the stone floor. Even though he knew it was stupid, and even though he definitely didn’t believe in God, Frank felt watched. Like there were a thousand eyes trained on him in disapproval. His Them phone rang out into the sepulchral silence and he almost jumped out of his fucking skin - Gerard, no doubt. He ignored it. He was all but finished here, anyway.

While he patted his pockets for his lighter, his attention landed on a bulletin board decorated in similar kitschy fashion as the rest of the room, pastel construction paper cutouts of flowers and baby animals all over the place, and at the top a string of cardboard letters asked, “What did I learn in Sunday school this week?” Fifteen or twenty crayon drawings stapled in neat rows illustrated various cute answers from different kids. Most featured vaguely Jesus-shaped blobs of brown and beige, smiling in huge red lines, with yellow circles drawn over His head. “I learned that Jesus died for our sins. Sarah, age five.” “I learned that Jesus loves me and my mom so much. Kyle, age six.” At the tail end of the last row, though, there was a very different sort of scene happening - a disfigured, menacing creature with a set of shark teeth dripping with blood lurching out of what looked like a cave, arms outstretched, a speech bubble above its head screaming “BRAAAAINZ” in huge child-like letters, while a crowd of also bloody people fled in open-mouthed, wild-eyed terror. Some of them also had speech bubbles of screaming. Four people were already dead, lying in enormous swirls of red crayon with X’s over their eyes and tongues lolling from straight-line mouths. Frank couldn’t help but grin at it - kids were fuckin’ something else, holy shit - and then he read the answer blurb beneath the picture. “I learned that Jesus was a zombie because He came back from the dead. Gerard, age five.”

Frank burst out laughing despite the silence. Oh, of course. Who else? He looked around for a Mikey drawing as well, but didn’t see one - 1982, before September, he must’ve been too little for Sunday school. Frank dug out his Them phone and took a picture of it before taking out his lighter at last. So this was a Gerard repair, somehow. Now he felt less bad about leaving the gas station without telling him. He made a note to ask about zombie Jesus when he got back.

He untied the cloth from around his neck, coughing as the sharp stink of accelerant finally hit him full force, and dunked it in a puddle of lighter fluid that had pooled on the seat of the back pew. With his back to the door, he folded the cloth into a tight wedge, said a silent apology to his mother, and lit up a corner of it before chucked it into the pews and throwing himself against the door’s crossbar. The roar and flash of light as the pews went up in flames chased him out on the the front stoop. He stumbled, off-balance, and fell off the first step; his lighter slipped out of his fingers and bounced away while he scraped the shit out of both knees on the concrete. “Mother_fucker,_” he complained, struggling to right himself.

“Hey, you! Don’t move! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Red and blue light bloomed, flashing, from across the street, glaring bright in the still morning. Oh, shit. Frank looked up to see a patrol cruiser parked on the curb, its two occupants scrambling out on either side. Great. He hauled himself up with the handrail, vaulted it, and took off at a sprint down the sidewalk. Fuck, he didn’t have time for this, when did these two show up? They hadn’t been there when he’d checked on his way back from the gas station. As he ran, he pulled his reset watch out and worked on setting it as best he could while searching for an escape route. He ducked into the first alley that presented itself and despaired when it turned out to be a dead end. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” he chanted, squashed himself flat against the brick wall, and scrolled dials as fast as he could. Sirens wailed down the street.

“Drop what you’re holding, hands in the air, now!”

Frank glanced up. Both cops had their guns drawn at the mouth of the alley, aimed at him, and his heart leapt into his mouth but he didn’t stop what he was doing. Just two more dials, come on, come _on_ \- 

“I said drop what you’re holding!”

They moved in closer. Frank swore as he missed the last number, dropping onto one skinned knee. “I heard you,” he shouted, which was a fucking stupid thing to say, what the fuck, but he found the right number again and yanked on the crown like he was pulling the pin on a grenade. “Bye!”

A shot rang out as he pushed it back down again.

* * *

Gerard heard Frank’s return before he saw it, a kind of whooshing sound like someone whipping a sword through the air, nearly lost under Otter’s incensed rant about leaving Frank’s ass right here in Bumfuck Indiana if he had to, goddamn it. He shot up off the curb mid-tirade and dashed around the side of the building; Frank had his back to him, one knee on the pavement. “What the _fuck_,” Gerard started to shout at him, but then Frank collapsed backward and Gerard caught a glimpse of blood on Frank’s skin and he abruptly forgot to be pissed off in favor of being terrified instead. “Oh my God, Frank!”

“I’m fine,” Frank gasped out, as Gerard rushed forward and dropped to a crouch beside him. Frank was white as a sheet, and he stank like butane - the blood, Gerard realized, was from twin badly scraped knees. “I’m fine, it missed. Came real fuckin’ close, though, fuck me - “

“What missed? What happened?”

But Frank just waved at him, shaking his head and staggering to his feet, and braced his hand against the minimart to catch his breath. “I’m in enough trouble. Tell you later.”

Gerard stood up as the other three came around the corner. Otter barreled past him to grab a fistful of Frank’s t-shirt at the collar and drag him away from the wall, amid shouted protests from Ray and Gerard.

“You fucking disappear like that again on our way home, you better like whatever backwater shithole it is because you’re fucking _staying_ there, understand?” he yelled, inches from Frank’s face, and shoved him hard enough that Frank stumbled and almost fell back onto the asphalt. Gerard threw a protective arm around him while Ray shot out in front of Otter with his arms raised.

“Otter, come on, fucking let it go! He’s here now, we can get back on the road, it’s _fine.”_ Otter glared at Ray like he wanted to hit him, too, but didn’t say anything else, just spun on his heel and marched back to the parking lot. Ray gave an aggravated sigh, one hand pressed against his forehead, and glanced over at Frank. “Frank, man, I know timing’s not your strong suit, but…look, I just want us all to play Chicago and go home without someone’s face getting fucked up, alright?”

Frank, mouth set in a hard line, nodded silently while staring down at the ground. Gerard, Ray, and Mikey exchanged another look; Mikey took off his glasses to wipe them on his t-shirt.

“Yay, tour,” he deadpanned, and put his glasses back on with a grimace before heading for the van, Ray right behind him. Gerard pulled Frank into a hug as soon as they both were gone.

“I couldn’t think of a good cover,” he said in Frank’s ear. “So I just said you must have gone for a walk after the argument. Otter didn’t like that much.”

Frank extracted himself from the hug with a sour expression. “You could tell Otter I was leaving to get him five million dollars and Milla Jovovich and he’d still fucking bitch about it.” He jammed his hands into his pockets in search of something, turning away from Gerard, who crossed his arms over his chest with a frown.

“Well, in fairness, you picked a shitty place to disappear without warning. I’m a pretty good liar, Frankie, but help me out. What was I supposed to say? There’s nothing here! Why couldn’t you just wait until we got to Chicago?”

“Oh, not you too,” Frank snapped at him then, and Gerard blinked in surprise, a flush creeping over his face. “Seriously? You think I _like_ being the asshole who flakes out on his bandmates?” He threw his arms wide in indignation. “I don’t get to pick! They don’t ask when it’s convenient for me to get hauled off to whenever the fuck, it’s hard enough finding ways to get out of the van in time!”

“You can’t just - I don’t know, ask for time off?” Gerard tried, but he knew it was a stupid questions before he asked it, and Frank glared at him accordingly from where he was pacing a tight loop.

“Banner fuckin’ idea, Gee. I’ll start faxing out-of-office notices to the time travel organization that owns half my soul, They’ll understand.” He went back to digging through his pockets and turned up an unopened, though squashed, pack of cigarettes, which he handed to Gerard without asking if he wanted one. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you. I just wanna smoke a fuckin’ cigarette and take a nap. Do you have a light? I lost mine.”

Gerard handed over the psychedelic-patterned lighter he’d picked up in Baltimore in response, which Frank took with a muttered thanks, and they each lit up without saying another word to each other. The heavy silence persisted as they climbed back in the van; by the time Gerard worked up the nerve to apologize, they were almost in Illinois, and when Gerard turned to look at the back seat, Frank was fast asleep.

He was still pissed off by the time they played that night, though. Frank had a habit of taking out his aggressions on stage and it showed; Gerard found himself dodging limbs and Frank’s guitar the entire set. He couldn’t avoid getting body checked into the P.A. when Frank unexpectedly launched himself at him during Sorrows and for a horrible second he thought the fucking thing would tip over, but Ray saw what was happening just in time to help him right it again. Frank ended the show by smashing his dad’s guitar into pieces against the stage and hurling the broken bits into the audience, and Gerard had figured that would be the end of it because wow, clearly Frank was working _something_ out, but it wasn’t. Later, after they’d loaded the van back up and were celebrating the end of their first tour with the rest of the bar, Gerard was drunkenly explaining to a blonde woman with an _incredible_ Joan of Arc tattoo about this idea he had for a graphic novel set two hundred years in the future where Joan of Arc was reincarnated to save humanity from nuclear destruction at the hands of an indifferent alien covenant and the army of android seraphs made from stone that she commanded with her mind, when the sound of shattering glass cut through the bar noise and Frank’s voice yelled, “Say it again, you fucking narrow-minded piece of shit!” and Gerard looked over just in time to watch Frank slam his fist into some dude’s jaw.

“Oh my God,” he said, panicked, and abandoned his Tom Collins and conversation to scramble off the barstool and speed over to where Frank was standing over the guy, shaking his hand out and still yelling at him.

“Get up, motherfucker! You can run your mouth, but you can’t take a punch? You’re pathetic!” Gerard grabbed ahold of him just before he landed a kick in the guy’s ribcage and dragged him back.

“Frank, Frankie, come on, he’s already down - “

“You didn’t hear what he _called_ you,” Frank spat, turning his head to look at Gerard with his eyes flashing. “Go on, tell him what you said, bro,” he shouted, and ripped away from Gerard as the guy was staggering back to his feet and cradling his jaw in one hand. Gerard flinched when Frank lashed out again and clamped his hands over his mouth when he heard a crunch and watched blood come pouring out of the other guy’s nose. “You picked the wrong night to insult my friends, fuckface!”

Gerard wanted to tell him that it was fine, whatever it was he’d been called worse, just please stop hitting the guy because Frank was going to get _arrested_ and they had to go home tomorrow, not to mention they had zero money for bail, _please_, but before he could get the words out someone shoved past him and spun Frank around by the shoulder to land a punch square across Frank’s cheekbone. Frank reeled back from the blow into someone else - Otter, it turned out, who neatly caught him and set him back upright before chin clipping the guy who’d hit Frank. And then Gerard didn’t know _what_ the hell was happening, but it was sudden, violent and chaotic and he caught the occasional frame: Frank, bleeding from the lip and snarling as he swung; Otter dodging an elbow and then taking a fist to the stomach. Gerard flailed at the very edge of the fight, wringing his hands - should he stop them? Jump in? He was fucking _useless_ in fights, Jesus, he’d get his ass kicked if he tried to help -

“Alright, alright, knock it the fuck off, all of you!”

The uproar came to an abrupt freeze. Both sides drew back like the Red Sea parting, and at the center stood a guy with short hair and almost as many tattoos as Frank, holding both arms out and glaring around at the entire group. Gerard blinked - wow, he needed to study how this dude controlled crowds, that was seriously Jedi-status - and met Frank’s eye across the circle. His cheek already sported an angry red mark and he dragged the back of his hand over his mouth, streaking a smear of blood over his chin. His lip looked like it was starting to swell. Gerard cringed; Frank just shrugged at him, and then spat on the floor.

“You three,” the guy (bar manager? Qui-Gon Jinn descendant? Either way, totally authoritative and totally fucking cool) continued, pointing in turn to Frank, Gerard, and Otter, who was probing at one of his molars with his fingers. “Green room, now, don’t even think about arguing. As for you mouthbreathers, the door is that way.” Short Tattoo Guy and a bouncer Gerard recognized started herding the other two significantly-worse-for-the-wear guys toward the exit, and on their way past him Tattoo Guy made eye contact with Gerard and jerked his head impatiently toward the backstage door.

Frank bumped Gerard with his shoulder on their way to the green room. “Those guys were _dicks_,” he muttered. Gerard shot him a look. “What? He called you a - “

“Faggot? Cocksucker? Pillow-biter? Not the first time.” Gerard looked at Frank’s lip, swelling around his piercing, and sighed. “Was it really worth getting punched over, Frank?”

“Yes,” Frank said, instantly and with fervor. He stopped in his tracks and gave Gerard an incredulous look. “You must think I’m a shitty friend if you believe for a second that I’d just let some dickhead spew all that hateful shit about you and _not_ relieve them of their teeth.”

“You’re _bleeding_,” said Gerard, and Frank scoffed.

“Come on, Gee. You’re my best friend. Bleeding is the least I can do for you.”

All of Gerard’s counterarguments about why violence was useless against homophobic morons died in his throat. He stared at Frank in surprise, his cheeks warm, until Otter pushed him through the backstage door and down the short hallway to the green room, where Frank went straight for the bucket of half-melted ice and Bud Light on the floor to grab a can and hold it to his lip. Otter flopped onto the short couch with a small groan, rolling his wrist.

“Thanks for backing me up, Otter,” Frank said, sitting cross-legged beside the bucket. Otter gave a gruff nod in response.

“Didn’t like them, either.”

And that was all they said to each other. Gerard dropped onto a folding chair and folded his legs up on the seat, still marveling over the fact that Frank had called him his best friend - a couple seconds later, Short Tattoo Guy burst into the room with Ray and Mikey in tow, looking thoroughly annoyed.

“That was fucking stupid,” he announced. He put his hands on his hips and glowered at Frank and Otter. “Do you drama queens start fights in every bar you play at, or did you want to get banned specifically from this one?”

“They fucking started it!” Frank exclaimed, at the same time Ray and Gerard both said “Banned?”

“Are we actually banned?” Ray continued, round-eyed with worry. “My cousin’s the one who got us this gig, I don’t want to get him in trouble - “

Short Tattoo Guy held up his hands in abatement. “You won’t get banned. I’m gonna talk to the bar manager, it’ll be fine. I just want to know what the hell it was that possessed you to come all the way to Chicago and fuck everything up the instant you got here.”

“Wait, are you not the bar manager?” Gerard said, brow furrowing, and Short Tattoo Guy looked at him like even asking the question aloud was a waste of both their time.

“If this were my bar, you’d have been out on your asses with the other two specimens.”

“So, you are…” Gerard trailed off in confusion, because he didn’t know what else the guy could be. Short Tattoo Guy heaved a sigh, and put his hands on his hips.

“I’m Brian Schechter, I manage _bands_. And I was thinking about asking you to hire me when I watched your set, but after the shit I just saw, I’m not so much asking as telling you that you need me to be your manager, like, yesterday.”

Mikey, who had dug a beer out of the ice bucket and made his way over to the couch, slumped down onto it with a long sigh. “Oh, halle-fucking-lujah. You got here at just the right time, dude, I thought we were gonna have to bury Frank on the way home.”

Frank gave Mikey the finger around his makeshift beer-turned-ice pack, which Mikey coolly returned before cracking open his can. Brian glanced between the two of them and lingered on Frank as he said, “Right. So you’re the designated pain in the ass, then.”

“Only on days that end in Y,” said Otter, eyes closed. Frank threw up his hands.

“Jesus, does _anyone _in this band like me right now?” Gerard raised his hand, and Frank beamed at him.

“Well, try not to hit anyone for five minutes, any of you.” Brian made for the door. “I’ll be back to talk contracts and whatnot. And uh, Frank, was it?” Frank nodded. “Anyone asks, he hit you first.” And then Brian was gone. Gerard looked around at the rest of the band, blinking in bewilderment.

“So, uh, I guess we have a manager?” he said, and looked at Ray. “Do we need a manager?”

Ray just gave him a look. “Dude. Have you _seen_ us?”


	13. Dusted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank would’ve slapped himself if he’d had a hand free. Was he having a fever dream? Because this shouldn’t be possible. Frank shouldn’t be here.

Brian, it turned out, was a _total_ Jedi. Not only did he smooth over the fallout from the bar fight in Chicago like it was nothing, he also got them set up for another tour that December, a longer one, and enough shows in between that Gerard hardly noticed the time passing. He printed off no-shit schedules for them every couple weeks, not just of their gigs but rehearsals, too.

(“Repeat after me: we live and die by the schedule,” said Brian, as he handed out the first round to them at their practice space.

“We live and die by the schedule,” they all echoed dutifully. Gerard stared down at his copy in wonder, like Brian had just given him a signed first edition of _Kill Your Boyfriend_ instead of a calendar. It was color-coded. Gerard was maybe a little bit in love with Brian.

Brian continued, “You show up by the time it says to show up, or I’ll assume you’ve died in some terrible accident and we’ll start making funeral arrangements accordingly. Any non-fatal and weird thing happens to you such that it would impair your ability to be on time for a scheduled thing - car crash, alien abduction, the Rapture - “

“Werewolves,” said Gerard, and grinned at Frank across the room, who snorted.

“Vampires,” he replied, baring his teeth.

“Hordes of the shambling undead,” Mikey offered, and then they were off, all of them spouting increasingly ridiculous supernatural reasons why they’d be late to band practice and giggling while Brian patiently rolled his eyes.

“Anyway,” he called over the noise, “something happens, call me before you call Buffy. Otherwise, the schedule is God. Follow it and we have no problems. Got it?”

Gerard got up off the couch then, and threw both arms around Brian’s shoulders, mashing his lips against his cheek. “Brian Schechter, you’re my hero,” he falsettoed in a sing-song, and Brian tolerated the hug for another two seconds before edging away from Gerard with a tight smile.

“Let me know as soon as possible if you need specific days off. I’ll be around,” were his parting words before he disappeared out the front door.)

Brian’s office was in Brooklyn, so he was close enough to instantly put out the small fires that came with being in an up-and-coming band. He did all the networking and hobnobbing that Gerard hated, and he helped them figure out the _insane_ red tape involved in getting health insurance, most especially Gerard’s, whose Xanax refills made everything two thousand times harder. The feud between Frank and Otter came to an end after Brian’s arrival; Gerard didn’t know if that was because Brian had actually talked to them, or if it was just that having an external authority on when and where to show up helped Frank get his shit figured out with Them, but Frank was never late anymore and he and Otter started kind of getting along.

If it weren’t for the way Brian sometimes yelled at them for the stupid shit they did and all the tattoos, Gerard would be convinced he was an angel. He was definitely a miracle worker. Gerard had no idea how they’d gotten as far as they had without him.

The winter tour was cold, claustrophobic, and kind of surreal. Gerard got his knife confiscated from him when he accidentally stabbed a hole in the middle van seat cushion (“Fucking Mariah Carey, man, it’s all her fault!” he insisted to Brian, who did not think it was funny, and also never gave him his knife back). They left Ray at three different gas stations in as many weeks, and after the third time, no one could get into or out of the van until Brian had done a head count to his satisfaction. Frank came down with a bad case of bronchitis right after Christmas, and spent two miserable days hacking up a lung in the far backseat, buried under as many shitty gas station souvenir blankets as they could afford and bitching at anyone who would listen about how badly he needed a cigarette that under no circumstances was anyone allowed to give him. Gerard, confined to the front passenger’s seat in Brian’s attempt at quarantine, drew Frank little comic strips of Frank as a werewolf bounty hunter to cheer him up and passed them along via Mikey, who when he wasn’t serving as a courier was playing so much Mortal Kombat on his GameBoy that Gerard swore he could hear the voice bellowing “FINISH HIM” in his dreams.

Frank didn’t disappear nearly as often on the winter tour. That might have had something to do with the fact that he was under the weather in some way almost the entire time. The times he _did_ have to go were quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affairs; he’d announce he was heading off for a cigarette and come back five minutes later in a different outfit. One time he went to the bathroom at a club and came back sunburned, his hair so long it was curling at the nape of his neck, and a full-fledged reddish-brown beard. His only saving grace was that Gerard was the first to see him. He practically tackled Frank through the ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’ door that led to the parking lot out back where their van was parked before any of the other guys caught a glimpse.

“Where the fuck have you been, on a _pirate ship?_” Gerard hissed at him as they went. “Have you seen yourself?”

“What? It hasn’t even been that long,” Frank protested, until they were standing next to the van, and he got a look at his reflection in the window. “Oh, fuck.” He burst into giggles, and ran a hand over his jaw, moving his head this way and that to see. “Wow, I could have sworn I was only gone, like, a week. That’s wild. I look like fuckin’ Aragorn!” He turned to grin at Gerard, who offered an exasperated smile before throwing open the sliding door to dig around for Ray’s electric razor. “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t remember what I looked like when I left now.”

“I’ll draw you a picture,” said Gerard, although now he was picturing Frank in Viggo Mortensen’s Strider costume from Fellowship, and it was kind of erasing his memory of Frank from seriously not even ten minutes ago. Oh well. He grabbed Ray’s shower kit out of his bag and thrust it into Frank’s arms. “Here, you shave and I’ll cut your hair.”

Frank waved him off. “Fuck it, I’ll just shave my head. Go back inside, it’s fuckin’ cold out here and Brian’ll hunt me for sport if you get sick.” 

It _was_ fucking cold out. They were in Pennsylvania and it was supposed to start snowing any minute. Gerard crossed his arms over his chest. “What about the sunburn?”

Frank, crouched beside the van to pick through Ray’s bag, looked up at him with a little puzzled smirk. “I’m gonna lie my ass off, Gee. Duh. Like anyone’s gonna say anything about it, anyway.”

He was right, of course. Ray complained that Frank used his razor to shave his head, and Otter asked if Frank was going straightedge, but that was all. Even Brian, who was the least used to Frank’s shenanigans, only made a comment about how as their manager Frank should tell him when he was planning to make drastic changes to his appearance. Gerard was amazed. Either he had the least observant friends in the world, or Gerard’s attention to detail was way overdeveloped. He stopped being obsessive about Frank getting found out by the other guys after that.

They also had their first weird fan encounter on the winter tour, in Jacksonville, a girl who snuck backstage while they were doing soundcheck and went through all the stuff they’d brought inside. Brian caught her on her way out of the green room with Gerard’s sketchbook, Mikey’s jacket, a pair of socks that were either Ray’s or Otter's, and Frank’s journal. They didn’t press charges or anything, since they got everything back, but it still freaked everyone out. Especially Frank. He’d been pretty weird about the journal from the get-go, even telling all of them not to look at it when someone asked him about it, but the near-theft made him downright paranoid.

“I write stuff about Them in it,” he told Gerard a few days after, huddled together in the van and passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth for warmth. “Stuff I can’t tell anyone, not even you, and fuck, Gee, if that shit got into, like, the world? They’d make me redundant so fucking fast.” Frank threw his head back to swallow a huge draft and coughed.

“Redundant?” Gerard repeated. He felt like maybe he shouldn’t have taken a second Xanax tonight. His head was fuzzy and his appendages were on a half-second delay from when he decided to move them to when they actually moved. The whiskey wasn’t helping. But Frank kept handing it back to him, so he kept drinking it. “What does that mean?”

Frank made a face like he wished Gerard hadn’t asked. “When They make you redundant, They…” He shuddered, and violently shook his head. “Fuck, I don’t even like thinking about it. Redundancy is the punishment for when you _really_ fuck up. Basically, They make it so you never existed. They destroy your watch, so that half of your soul bound to it is gone forever, and the other half has to languish in the Void for the rest of time.”

Gerard instantly wanted to throw up. He scrambled for the door handle and leaned out over the asphalt just in time; Frank held onto the back of his hoodie to keep him from falling out while he retched up whiskey and bile into the powdered-sugar snow. When his stomach emptied out at last and Gerard slumped back against the upholstery, breathing hard, Frank handed him a water bottle. The whiskey had disappeared.

“You okay?” Frank asked, and Gerard nodded, even though he still felt woozy and his tongue tasted like death-by-sour-mash. He swished around a mouthful of water and spat it out again.

“Sorry,” he rasped. He coughed into his sleeve. “Um. That won’t happen to you, right?”

Frank just looked at him, solemn and sad. In the dim cast of the cloudy January night, his face was more shadow than anything else. “You wouldn’t have any idea if it did.”

They wrapped the winter tour a week and a half after the almost-theft, in Boston. Frank got sick again and spent the drive home silent and shivering on Gerard’s shoulder, despite Brian’s repeated warnings that Gerard would _for sure_ catch whatever killer virus it was. Gerard finished the 'Frank the Bounty Hunter' plot, Frank scrawling his commentary in the margins whenever he wasn’t sunk in feverish sleep. The collected series made its way around the van, everyone chiming in with character ideas and demands for cameos - Mikey wanted to be Frank’s sidekick and also a unicorn (“So, a unicorn wearing your glasses and a Joy Division t-shirt?” Gerard clarified, and Mikey shrugged in the way that meant yes, and Gerard rolled his eyes), Ray thought that the werewolves should be comprised of the local high school football team “to lend tragedy,” Brian thought that overall it needed more gore, which Gerard agreed with and also made him fall just a little bit more in love with Brian, and Otter declared that it beat the shit out of the _Buffy _comics. Brian also had the idea that they could issue it with future pressings of Bullets, “super limited edition, like, future collector’s item, you know?” and by the time they’d said their goodbyes and dispersed to their own beds, Gerard already missed being on the road with all of them.

Brian gave them two weeks off, enough time for them all to come down with and then get over Frank’s killer virus, and then they were back with three shows over a weekend at Shot in the Dark. As the headliner, which blew Gerard’s mind, and also made him want to _keel over and die_ from nerves. Thursday, their first night, Gerard started his day with two Xanax and locked himself in the basement, chain-smoking and wearing the nibs on his good markers down to almost nothing. He wrote a new song with no chorus and not much of an idea about how it was supposed to sound, either, but the little sections that he sang to himself while he scribbled holes in his sketchpad were in mostly D flat. A couple times, he went up to Mikey’s room and stole his phone to text Frank just to see if he would respond (he didn’t, but he almost never answered the phone anyway, so Gerard couldn’t really be disappointed even though he definitely was). Ray came to pick him and Mikey up for the show around six, because something mysterious and expensive had happened to Gerard’s transmission a couple days after they got back from tour and his Subaru had been at the garage ever since. Gerard showed them both the new song; Ray immediately picked up Gerard’s underutilized Strat to start trialling some chords, which Gerard took as a good sign.

Brian called Mikey while they were on their way to Hoboken. _“Have any of you talked to Frank today?” _he asked when Mikey put him on speakerphone. _“I’ve called him a couple times and he’s not picking up, little shit.”_

Ray and Mikey instantly looked at Gerard, who pressed both hands over his face and groaned. Fuck, not again.

“We can swing by his apartment,” said Ray, already swerving toward the Union City exit. “If he’s not there, we’ll call you back.”

Frank wasn’t there. Ray called Brian to break the bad news while Gerard banged on the door and yelled through it that Frank fucking better be inside or he’d break the fucker down, until someone down the hall shouted that they’d call the cops if Gerard kept it up, and then Mikey had the brilliant idea to try the fire escape. He and Ray waited at the bottom while Mikey climbed up to the third floor, and split Gerard’s last couple cigarettes between the two of them.

“The window’s locked,” Mikey reported a couple minutes later, shouting down over the railing. “Is this his room? If it is, he’s not in it.”

“Fuck,” Gerard moaned, slumping against the wall, while Ray sighed and pulled out his phone to call Brian again. Mikey rejoined them on the sidewalk while Ray went back and forth with Brian about what to do.

“Didn’t look ransacked or anything,” Mikey told Gerard, handing over his phone when Gerard made grabby hands. “Just vacant.”

“You tried knocking?” said Gerard, gnawing on his pinky nail while he pulled up Frank’s number on speed dial. Mikey cocked an eyebrow at him in a _no, I thought I’d just stand there and do nothing and see if maybe Frank would magically appear_ way in lieu of a verbal response, and Gerard rolled his eyes while the phone rang, and rang, and rang. He gave up after the fifth round of hanging up and redialing and getting sent to voicemail, gave Mikey his phone back and dug into his pocket for the third Xanax of the day. Mother_fucker. _He thought Frank was done with the disappearing act. He couldn’t lie to Brian, either; that defeated the whole point of having Brian in the first place.

Ray hung up his own call with a grim look. “Brian wants us to just head over. Says it’ll look bad if we’re all late.”

Gerard raked his hands through his hair in despair. “But we can’t play without Frank. Are we just supposed to leave half the guitar parts out? That’ll sound fucked up.”

“He’ll probably just show up at Shot in the Dark thirty seconds before our set. That’s what he used to do,” said Mikey, pushing Gerard gently in the direction of Ray’s car. “Brian’s definitely gonna kill him, though.”

* * *

** 34° 35' 15.522” N, 117° 52' 17.4” W, NOVEMBER 22ND, 2019 **

The rag tied way too fucking tight over Frank’s eyes smelled like motor oil. And there was sand caught between the zip ties binding his wrists, and it was hot as Satan’s taint, and this timeline fucking sucked festering old saggy _balls. _He relayed all of this, in order, at the top of his lungs, to the other three people in the room, and it didn’t actually matter because they’d stuffed another rag in his mouth and fucking belted it in place. Luckily, it only tasted like dust.

This repair was pretty much fucked. They’d explicitly told him he was not to make any sort of contact with anyone for any reason here. Let alone walk straight into an ambush. He refused to feel bad about failing this one, though. He’d done the legwork, for fuck’s sake, properly staked the diner out and everything, he’d been certain they were gone. Clearly these people were used to guys like Frank trying to break into their shit. It was downright _professional, _the way they’d grabbed him. Frank thrashed in the chair he’d been tied to, and succeeded only in tipping himself over on his side and knocking his head against the floor.

One of the three people sighed. “Kid, stop it, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” they called to him. Their voice sounded fucked up, like they’d run it through Vocaloid; were they trying to disguise it or something? They’d all been wearing masks when they took Frank down outside. Maybe they were fugitives. The weird, buzzy voice continued to the others, lower, “There’s no way this came from BL. Look at it, it’s fuckin' brass!”

“Might be cloaked,” offered a different voice, also disguised, and Frank heard the faint sound of the dials on his reset watch popping out. “Or, uh. Well. That’s pretty weird. Not sure what that’s about.”

“Stop fucking with my shit,” Frank demanded, but it came out “Ah huggy if eye fip,” and he struggled to wrench the zip ties apart on his wrists, until he felt the edges bite hard enough into his skin to draw blood and he stopped.

“This is just a regular phone,” said a third voice. “It’s a little slicker than the old smartphones used to be, but it’s not one of theirs. Not new enough.”

Frank writhed his way onto his knees, and tried to lever himself back up to sitting. A pair of hands roughly hauled him and the chair upright again.

“Would you relax? You’re one squirrelly fucker,” said the first voice, closer now. Frank told them he’d relax if they fucking _untied_ him, assholes, which came out sounding nothing like what he intended. “Yeah, back at you, kid. So what do we think?” they asked the others. “Is he dangerous?”

“Everyone’s dangerous, Party,” the second voice replied, sounding distracted. “Especially when they turn up out of nowhere outside our presumed super-secure bolthole and start asking what _we’re_ doing here.” Frank felt the instant someone popped the crown on his watch, felt the link open up like a tug in his veins, and panicked by the thought of getting sent to some random timeline and stranded, he started shouting and flailing around again. “Oh, is that a big red button? Interesting. Why don’t you tell us about it, kid?” Someone approached him again, and to his relief, undid the belt wrapped around his head and pulled the rag out of his mouth.

“Time travel,” Frank gasped out as soon as he could form the words, and coughed. Fuck, there was _sand_ in his mouth, what the fuck. “The watch, it lets me time travel. Don’t fuck with it or it’ll send me somewhere and I’ll get stuck. Please.”

A heavy pause followed his words. “Huh,” one of them said, dryly and undisguised, and wait. Wait. That tone sounded familiar. “That’s…not what I was expecting to hear.”

“Bullshit,” scoffed someone else, also stripped of the Vocaloid. Fuck, _that_ was - that sounded just like - Frank shook his head, feeling insane. No way. He had to be imagining things. “Better Living’s got those stupid kiosks for micro-time travel, they don’t need pocket watches.”

“Prototype? New aesthetic? I mean,” and whoever it was started laughing a little, “Korse already looks like a pirate.”

One of them groaned. “Oh my god, shut _up_, Jet.”

“I’m telling you guys, this isn’t BL. It’s not their style,” insisted the third voice, right behind Frank. “And come on, look at him. He’s not armed, he doesn’t have a tracer, and you’re not gonna get ink like this _anywhere _anymore, least of all Battery City.” Jesus, this was such a fucking trip. If it weren’t for the vocabulary and the venue, Frank would totally peg that voice as - “So, fine, I’ll bite on time travel, kid. But accepting that means opening up a big can of worms, so we need more information. A _lot_ more. I’ll take this off just ‘cause you’re not immediately dangerous.” They started picking at the knot in Frank’s makeshift blindfold. Frank held still while they worked, hopeful that cooperation meant he could get out of here sooner. “For now, though, you stay in the chair till you’ve answered some of our questions.”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Frank, already impatient to get this over with. He was running behind on this repair now, and the band had a show at Shot in the Dark tonight. Brian would be _pissed_ if he was late. 

The person working off the blindfold gave a dry chuckle. “Something tells me you’ve done this before.” They pulled the rag away at last, and Frank shook his head and blinked away a few tears that welled up when stray sand grains ended up in his eye. The place looked like a 50’s diner caught in a war zone; dirty, dim, and cluttered with all kinds of flotsam from scrap electronics to car parts. The checkered tile was a mess and the once-cherry red vinyl covering the booths and counter stools had faded to a sort of milky brick color. Most everything was in some stage of destruction or decay. And so much of it was tagged; Frank thought there might actually be equal amounts of spray paint and dust on stuff. (The instructions he'd been given were a tiny bit clearer, now, although he still wasn't sure what the message was about.) All the windows were covered with either wood or cloth, and on the biggest was spray painted the words “WHERE ARE YOU, DESTROYA???” in slashes of red. 

“Looks like an intense art project in here,” said Frank.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” The person dropped the rag in Frank’s lap, and then moved away to drag over a stool. They were lean, tanned, and not very tall, with a mop of hair redder than the diner vinyl had ever been, and they wore a shredded black tank top with skintight light wash jeans and some seriously kick-ass boots. “Now personally, I think torture’s pretty gross. So I’m not gonna, like, rip your fingernails off if you don’t want to talk, but I’m also not gonna give you your shit back.” They placed the stool in front of Frank.

“And we have no problems just ditching you in the desert,” someone called from behind the counter. “You know, if all else fails.”

Red Hair dragged their gloved hand over their brow with a sigh as they turned to face Frank at last. “Thanks, Kobra. That’ll make him want to open up for sure.” They sat, and tugged off the brightly-colored domino mask sitting over their eyes, and Frank felt a weird full-body jolt not dissimilar what he thought it would be like to get struck by lightning when a sixteen-years-older Gerard looked at him and smiled. “You got a name, kid?”

Frank, dumbstruck, could only stare. Gerard. Here. At least forty something, i.e., not dead of a drug overdose at twenty-seven. He’d lost the youthful softness of 2003 Gerard around his jaw and cheeks, and he definitely got way more sun than 2003 Gerard did, and he had the barest little crow’s feet around his eyes, and he was _alive past twenty-seven_. In some crazy, wrecked desert diner hideout. Frank would’ve slapped himself if he’d had a hand free. Was he having a fever dream? Because this shouldn’t be possible. Frank shouldn’t be here.

Gerard raised his eyebrows at him as the smile faded. “That’s, uh, super creepy.” He snapped his fingers under Frank’s nose. “Hey. Memorizing my face isn’t gonna get you out of that chair. Tell me your name.”

“Motherfucker,” said Frank, faintly, and laughed a little when Gerard’s eyebrows shot up even higher. “No, not you. It’s - I think I’m in the wrong fucking timeline.”

* * *

Frank didn’t show up thirty seconds before their set time, or at all. He didn’t respond to anyone’s calls, not even Brian’s, and half an hour after they were supposed to go on, they had to call it and go on without him. They didn’t sound bad, but they didn’t sound good either, and Gerard figured that was mostly his fault because he was _fucked up_ on Xanax and beer and forgot the words to Honey in the middle of playing it. He clung to the mic stand for most of their set, afraid that if he let go of it he’d fall over, and the first thing he did once they’d finished and returned to the green room was stick his head into the nearest trash can and puke.

Brian was there with a plastic cup full of water, which he handed Gerard with a grim look when Gerard finished. “There something you want to tell me? Like what you’ve been taking today?”

Gerard spat one last time. “Jussxanax,” he managed, and gulped down the entire cup in three swallows.

“Uh-huh.” Brian squatted down beside him with his elbows on his knees. Oh. Gerard was on the floor now. Weird. “How many?”

“Fffffour,” said Gerard, after some deliberation. He nodded. That seemed right. “Only cause, cause Frank’s, you know. He left. Again. Makes me…fuckin’ freaks me out. You know?” And he felt abruptly sick again, because that’s right, Frank was gone, and he hurled up the water. Brian patted his shoulder.

“Four?” Gerard heard Mikey say under his breath, sounding incredulous. “He’s supposed to take _two_ and that’s if he’s, like, on the verge of a panic attack.”

“I _was,_” Gerard said, defensive, and raised his head to glare at him. In the fluorescent light, Mikey’s glasses blocked his eyes, which was creepy. “Move your glasses, motherfucker, I can’t see you.”

Mikey, uncooperative as ever, heaved a sigh and moved out of Gerard’s field of vision instead. Brian took the cup from Gerard to fill it again.

“You said Frank left again. What does that mean?” he asked, while Gerard hugged the little trash can to his chest and argued with his stomach over whether or not he was gonna throw up again. “Does Frank do this a lot?”

“He did, before you showed up,” said Ray, who’d sat on a chair a couple feet away from where Gerard had ended up. “It’s like he runs permanently on football minutes or something.”

“We probably should have fired him before we did the album, but, you know. That was back when we were letting Gerard be in charge,” Otter said, and Gerard pulled his face out of the trash can to glare at him, too, because _ouch,_ but Otter was looking at Brian instead, leaned up against one wall with arms crossed over his chest. “Maybe you could help us find a new rhythm guitarist, Brian, since you probably won’t be looking for one with your _dick_.”

A heavy, uncomfortable silence dropped over the room. Gerard felt like he’d been slapped. He stared at Matt with his mouth open, a protest stuck in the back of his throat - but then again, could he really say he’d asked Frank to join the band because Frank could play guitar? He hadn’t even known if Frank was _good_ or not. Maybe he’d earned this. Maybe sticking up for Frank all the time was a mistake.

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Matt,” Mikey spat, so suddenly it made Gerard jump, and when he glanced over to that corner of the room, Mikey was on his feet with his hands curled into fists and a _furious_ look on his face that kind of scared him. “It’s not Gerard’s fucking fault that Frank’s a flake, and you don’t get to insult him every single time something goes wrong. Gerard let _you_ join the band, too, fuckface. Maybe we should start talking about all the shit _you_ fuck up. Have you ever heard of a click track?”

Otter rounded on Mikey, then, firing off something snarky about Mikey spending more time staring at the floor than at his finger placement, and Mikey retorting that he wouldn’t need to if he wasn’t listening so hard for the rhythm that Otter kept fucking up. Ray snapped at them both to cool it, and then all three of them were arguing and yelling at each other until finally Brian hauled up to his feet and roared, “ALL OF YOU SHUT UP, NOW.”

They did, lapsing into sullen quiet. Mikey dropped onto the floor beside Gerard without looking at him, while Otter stormed off to a far corner and Ray sunk back into his chair, looking drained. Brian pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Okay,” he began, after a long pause. “Everyone’s frustrated, and I get it. Tonight was a disaster.”

“And fucking how,” Ray muttered. Brian shot him a look.

“But it’s not the end of the world. Alright? Go home, get some sleep, punch walls or whatever. We’ll meet up at your practice space tomorrow morning and talk. I’m gonna keep trying to get ahold of Frank. Let me know if he gets in contact with any of you.”

Gerard nodded along with the rest of them, but deep down he knew that if Frank didn’t call Brian back, there was no way he was gonna reach out to any of them. He set the trash can between his knees and picked up the water cup, taking tiny sips while around him the other guys gathered up their stuff in silence. Otter stormed out before anyone else and slammed the door so hard behind him the floor shook. Mikey helped Gerard up and carried his bag out to Ray’s car for him. Loading up gear back into the trailer was a terse affair; Gerard was pretty sure Mikey “accidentally” docking Otter in the shoulder with his bass amp was on purpose. Mikey backed out on getting a ride back with Ray, with the excuse that he was gonna head to a party with his former college friends instead. Gerard drank some more water on the way home, and Ray tried to distract him by bringing up the new song again, but neither of their hearts were really in it, and they mostly let the radio fill up the silence.

When Gerard shouldered through the back door, feeling a little woozy and a lot exhausted, his plan was to eat some crackers and fall into bed. He did not expect his mom to be up, for one, and _especially_ did not expect her to chuck the landline at him in high dudgeon.

“This little _punk_ has been plaguing my house every twenty seconds for the last _hour,_ Gerard Arthur Way, and he’s asking for you, will you _please_ tell him to fuck off so I can go to SLEEP?” she shouted at him, hair curlers trembling with the effort. She threw up her arms with a huff, and spun on her heel to go back to her room, cursing under her breath the whole time. Gerard blinked down at the handset, still ringing.

“Sorry, Mom,” he called after her, bewildered, and she yelled back something unintelligible and slammed her door shut. With a small shake of his head, he picked up and put the phone to his ear. “Uh, Way residence, Gerard speaking. Look, whoever this is, you really pissed off my - “

_“Gerard! Fucking finally! It’s Frank, I’ve been trying to call you for years!”_

Gerard pulled the handset away from his head to goggle at it, first shock and then rage zinging through him like electricity, and he had to slam his fist against the wall to stop himself from chucking the phone at it instead. “You mother_fucker,_” he hissed, his voice strangled, once he managed to get the handset back up to his ear. “Frank, you missed the fucking show! I thought you were fucking _dead_, you asshole, why didn’t you call anyone? Brian’s inches from filing a missing persons report, Otter started this huge fight with everyone and now we have to have a meeting tomorrow morning to talk about it, not to mention I was so fucking worried that something happened to you - “

* * *

“I know, I know, I know, and I’m really fucking sorry, Gee, but I couldn’t get out of my repair in time,” said Frank, talking as fast as he could. “I got tied up. Literally.”

Future-Gerard, along with Future-Mikey and Future-Ray (using laughable code names that Frank had already forgotten), sat crowded in one of the former booths around Frank’s Them phone, on speakerphone atop a dining table that served these versions of his bandmates as a makeshift workbench for assembling bombs. Frank, figuring he had nothing to lose here, told them pretty much everything, and even though he’d used their actual names and explained how the reset watch worked and who They were, they still wanted proof. He got the idea to kill two birds with one stone, since he needed to call Gerard anyway and let him know he wasn’t dead, and here they were, all three listening to 2003 Gerard yell at Frank with absolutely _gobsmacked_ expressions. Future-Mikey looked especially freaked out.

(Future-Mikey was blond, didn’t wear glasses, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of how to make explosives from scratch. Frank kind of had to be convinced it was Mikey at all.)

“Dude, that’s _you,_” he whispered furiously to Future-Gerard, who just stared at Frank’s phone in round-eyed shock and nodded. Future-Ray (who was basically 2003 Ray with longer hair and like, ten times the muscle mass) started giggling to himself, covering his mouth with his hand.

“You sound like a teenager_,_” Future-Ray said with glee.

_“You got tied up?” 2003 Gerard echoed. “Where the hell are you? Who tied you up?”_

Frank grinned at Future-Gerard. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. On either count. Um, Gee, can you do me a favor?”

_“I am so not in the mood to do anything for you right now, Frank. We had to play without you and it fucking sucked, okay, I was - “_

“Can you tell me what day it is?” Frank interrupted. “You can yell at me when I get back, but time is a factor, here. What’s the date?”

One of Gerard’s trademark I’m-so-mad-at-you-I-can’t-properly-express-my-thousand-scorns-except-non-verbally sighs crackled down the line. _“Fuck you. It’s January 16th, almost 17th now. 2003,”_ he added, pissy. _“You better be back in time for the meeting tomorrow, or Brian’s gonna put your face on milk cartons, you dick.”_

“See you in the morning,” said Frank cheerfully, and hung up. He looked expectantly at the other three, and spread his hands in a _well?_ gesture. “What do we think, boys, am I bullshitting you?” His phone pinged with a text. Frank scooped it up and glanced at the screen.

_Abort repair. Timeline collapse imminent. You will not be penalized. Repeat, abort repair._

Oh, fuck.

“Holy shit, 2003? Pre-Calamity. That is a fucking trip, man.” Future-Ray scrubbed his hands through his hair with a grin. “I can’t even picture you that young.”

According to what little information Frank had gleaned about the three of them, Future-Gerard and Mikey hadn’t known Ray at all before they’d ended up in the desert. There’d been no band. Frank had no idea what they’d all done instead, or what was going on with the rest of the world, other than there being a place called Battery City within driving distance (Frank guessed that was an L.A. analogue) that was governed by a corporation called Better Living, which was bad news. But none of that mattered now, because it was all about to come crashing down and Frank needed to get out of here _yesterday._

“It wasn’t pretty,” Future-Gerard murmured. He was watching Frank with his eyebrows furrowed. Probably because Frank was scrabbling around desperately for his watch, which they hadn’t given back to him yet. “Frank, you’re making me nervous. What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Frank lied, at the same time Future-Mikey sat up stock-straight and said, sharply, “Did you hear that?”

Frank cursed, and doubled down on his search. His phone had been on the diner counter. It followed that his watch would be somewhere nearby, right? He vaulted over the back of the booth and made a dash for the counter as Gerard, Mikey, and Ray scrambled out of the booth toward a pile of clothing and masks atop another table. After shoving aside some dissected circuit boards and a packet of what Frank was pretty sure was gunpowder, he found his watch, still with the crown yanked up and all the dials popped. He couldn't adjust any of them once the crown was up, so he was just gonna have to follow whatever coordinates were already set (which he didn't recognize) and hope he didn't wind up, like, in the ocean somewhere. A hand on his shoulder stopped him before he could push it back in - he whirled to find Future-Gerard, back in his domino mask and donning a blue leather jacket. He peered at Frank for a couple seconds.

"I don't think this was a fluke," he said. "I know you said you were in the wrong timeline, but I don't think you're here by accident."

"Party, let's go," Future-Mikey called from the back of the diner. Future-Gerard held up his other hand, holding a thigh holster with a gun the same color as his mask peeking out.

"Yeah, gimme a second, K." He dropped his other hand from Frank's shoulder to start doing up the holster on his right side. "I always felt like there was something...wrong, about this world. Where it ended up." He looked up from his handiwork to Frank again. "The Calamity, the bombs, Better Living - that all started in 2004. Here you are, fresh out of 2003, and you just happen to know not just who we really are, but where to find us? You must have had a mission, right?"

Frank looked down at his watch, and nodded.

"What was it?"

Admittedly, the instructions hadn't made a lot of sense to Frank when he'd gotten them. Maybe Gerard would know how to interpret them. Frank twitched his finger over the crown. "I was supposed to come in here and tag 'I forgive you' somewhere you'd see it," he said, and shrugged. "I dunno. They love Their cryptic shit."

"PARTY! Now!" Mikey bellowed. "We got Dracs incoming!"

Future-Gerard stared at Frank, eyes wide under the mask, and then he barked out a sort of weird, choked laugh before he nodded and backed away. "Okay. Okay. I - message received." He reached down and grabbed his gun out of its holster. "You take care of yourself, Frank," he said, and waved before running for the back of the diner.

Frank didn't waste another second pushing down the crown on his watch. He wound up at the junction of some highway in a different desert nowhere, the sun shining high above his head - he reset the watch to his apartment instead. He went through the usual routine of dumping all his stuff in the bedside table drawer and locking it, grabbing his journal, scribbling down everything that had just happened before he forgot anything. At the bottom of the entry, he wrote "I FORGIVE YOU" in block letters.

He wondered who Future-Gerard needed forgiveness from.


	14. Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank studied the tip of his finger, stained crimson with eyeshadow, and then glanced up at Gerard through his lashes. “Would it help if you did mine first?”

Far away, someone was screaming his name.

Was he still breathing? He couldn’t feel his body.

At least it didn’t hurt anymore.

_ Genuit nos ab astris. _

Consciousness rose and fell like a tide. Pitch-sticky oblivion clung to him as he bobbed with it, clinging to his fingers and pooling around his eyes, the prickling non-temperature of fresh blood on skin and black as wet ink.

_ Donum a Deo…nunc in tempore sanguinis tenetur in aeternum. _

Whispers swirled in stereo all around, thousands of voices but none his own, though the sound came from inside his head. Snatches of Latin echoed in his ears, punctuated by the unknown voice still screaming for him somewhere beyond the dark. He didn’t understand what the whispers said. He didn’t know why anyone was calling for him. A dull throb of not-quite pain began to pulse through his chest.

_ Quod est esse semper, ut semper, et in saecula saeculorum. _

The voices got louder each time he buoyed back up to awareness, or maybe there were just more of them. What were they saying? He tried to ask, but he couldn’t find his tongue, couldn’t take a breath. The throb deepened. This time, it hurt.

_ Et non morieris. _

Pain tore him out of the pitch while the voices crescendoed to a dissonant polytonal shout he couldn’t escape. They drowned out the person calling his name, if they were still there.

_ Et sanguinem. _

He wanted to scream back at them, overwhelmed, beg them to stop, to leave him alone, please leave him alone - 

_ Deo patri sit Gloria. Amen. _

Gerard woke with a choked-off gasp, sweating and tangled in the comforter, and he stared up at the ceiling with his heart racing and one hand around his throat for some reason. Jesus. He hadn’t had a nightmare in awhile. Where had the Latin come from? He didn’t know Latin. His other hand shot out toward the nightstand for his Xanax on instinct and brushed skin; startled, he turned his head and found Mikey crouched on the floor beside his bed, watching him over the top of his glasses with his brows drawn together and his eyes wide. One of Gerard’s pill bottles was in his hand.

“You okay?” Mikey asked in a soft voice. He was familiar with Gerard’s nightmares. The last time they’d gotten really bad, just before Mikey moved into his dorm, Mikey had taken to sleeping in Gerard’s bed to help him through the inevitable panic attacks that followed. Gerard could feel the beginnings of one seeping in around his ribcage. He dragged in a ragged breath and shook his head; Mikey twisted the bottle open and rattled out a pill that he handed over with the half-empty glass of water that had been sitting out for God knew how long. Gerard gulped it down and clutched tight to the hand Mikey offered him while he concentrated on breathing. In for five. Hold for five. Out for seven. Repeat. Mikey counted each breath aloud in that same low voice until Gerard’s head wasn’t buzzing anymore and he could feel the tips of his fingers again. “You were talking this time,” Mikey told him, letting go and moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

“I was?” Gerard kicked the comforter away, too warm now, and pushed his hair out of his eyes. It was getting pretty long. “What was I saying?”

Mikey made a face. “Sounded like a Romance language. You were repeating something, uh, it was like - adieu vuh-may? I dunno.”

“_ Aidez-moi? _” Gerard tried. “That’s French. I think it means ‘help me.’” He’d taken all of two years of high school French and he wasn’t exactly fluent. Not enough to be speaking it in his sleep.

“Maybe. It was kind of hard to make out.” Mikey was quiet for a moment, staring down at the carpet with the barest frown curling his lip - an expression Gerard saw a lot of recently, and one he hadn’t yet deciphered - and finally, he blew out a long breath. “Brian called just before I came down here.”

Right, the meeting. Gerard didn’t remember setting a time last night. He didn’t remember much, actually - the whole night felt a lot like another dream, disjointed events bumping into one another. He did remember the fight, and Brian calling a meeting, and Frank calling him on the house phone that his mom had thrown at him. He ground the heel of his palm against his eyes, feeling a mother of a headache setting in. “Great. Was he still pissed?”

Mikey wrapped his arms around his knees. “He didn’t say. That wasn’t really the point. Um.” He lifted his eyes from the floor for a split second to meet Gerard’s, and just as quickly looked away again up to a corner across the room, his jaw set. Gerard recognized the move. It meant bad news. His stomach dropped.

“Is Brian firing us?” he said, dreading the answer. Please no. They’d only just gained real steam as a band, they couldn’t lose Brian now. 

“No.” Mikey pressed his lips together till his mouth turned white at the edges, and then he said, “Otter quit.”

Gerard stared at him. Mikey kept looking at the corner, though, mute - after a prolonged silence, Gerard dropped his head into his hands. “Fuck,” he croaked. The buzzing returned with a vengeance, his thoughts crackling like static. “You’re fucking kidding me. He _ quit? _ As in - as in _ quit?” _

At last Mikey dropped his chin and just looked at him, his expression unreadable, and Gerard swore again and reached for his pills again with shaking hands.

Brian broke the bad news in person to the group at their meeting. “As far as the guys at Shot in the Dark know, there’s been a family emergency, so you’re off the hook for this weekend,” he told them, standing at the center of the room with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked grim. “But, you know. Don’t hold your breath on getting asked to play there again.”

No one spoke. Gerard glanced around at the other three; Mikey, on the opposite end of the couch, had all of his limbs folded up so tight he looked like human origami and his eyes fixed on the floor. Ray, who’d been restringing his guitar before Brian got there, was now just holding it on his lap, staring down at the half strung neck with a glum expression. Frank was _ furious; _pacing the room like a trapped rat, fists curled, two seconds from putting a hole in the drywall with one of them, Gerard was certain. He was the only one who returned Gerard’s gaze, though not for long - he turned abruptly to his mic stand, minus its mic, and threw it over on its side. The resulting crash made Gerard flinch.

“Did he say why he was quitting?” Gerard asked Brian, who pulled a face that he historically only made when he had to tell them they were out of cash for food on the road.

“Yeah,” he started, dragging out the vowels with reluctance, “he, uh, mentioned something - “

“Cut the shit, Brian, I know it’s my fucking fault,” Frank spat then. Gerard looked at him - he stood beside his amp stack, all hard lines and tension, poised like he’d snap if someone so much as looked at him wrong. Frank slammed his fist against the top of the cabinet and went on, loudly, “Fucker never liked me to start with, and now he’s taking it out on the fucking band.” He whirled around in a blur of motion and kicked at the mic stand base, sending it skidding dangerously close to one of the amps. “Son of a _ bitch!” _

Brian snatched the back of Frank’s t-shirt when he stalked past, and held fast, dragging Frank back to face him. “Stop breaking shit,” he said in his don’t-fuck-with-me voice, and glared at him hard enough that Gerard feared Frank might take psychic damage before shoving him away again. Frank stormed off to a far corner of the space and threw himself down, back pressed to the walls and arms around his knees. Brian rolled his eyes, and then continued, “Obviously you can’t play shows till we get a drummer. I made some calls today about getting fill-ins for the shows that are already scheduled after Shot in the Dark, but we’re gonna need someone at least semi-permanent by May.”

Gerard ground the heels of his palms against his brow bone, his heart already climbing into his throat. “Fuck. Who else do we know that drums? Mikey, you know everyone, is there someone you can ask?” he said, a little desperately, and turned to the other end of the couch, where Mikey already had his phone out.

“Maybe we could borrow Rob,” Ray offered, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “From Midtown? I don’t think they’re gigging right now, they’re supposed to be working on an album.”

Mikey snorted without looking up. “They’re not. Saporta’s in Cabo banging co-eds still on winter break. He keeps sending me pictures of, like, micheladas and sailboats and shit. I’m pretty sure Rob’s at his girlfriend’s place in Philly anyway.”

Gerard gave a high-pitched warble of frustration before digging into his pocket for cigarettes. “We’re so fucked.”

“Why May?” Frank said suddenly, his head shooting up from where it had been resting on his knees. He looked at Brian, who’d busied himself with fixing a Styrofoam cup of coffee at the folding table. “You said by May. What’s going on in May?”

Brian didn’t look up from his coffee. “I didn’t say? Whoops.” He snapped the lid back on and took a long sip. “Uh, you’re going to Europe this summer. Which reminds me, we should start getting you all passports. Takes fuckin’ forever to get those things processed…what?” he finally said, once he took in all the incredulous staring from everyone else in the room.

“Europe?” Gerard all but screeched. He’d been about to light up when Brian dropped the bomb, and his cigarette fell out of his mouth now.

“…Yeah,” said Brian, nonplussed. He sipped at his coffee again. “You know, the continent? It’s pretty famous. You’ll be there till August. Turns out they fuckin’ love you guys over there and I wanted to get you on an international leg before we start talking Album Two. Why are you all _ looking _at me like that?” he finally demanded, feigning annoyance even as he grinned, while Ray launched himself at Brian with a whoop and enveloped him in a bear hug. Frank wasn’t far behind, cheering at the top of his lungs, and Gerard seized Mikey’s sleeve with both hands.

“We’re like a real fuckin’ band now!” he crowed, beaming, and threw his arm around Mikey’s neck. “International touring band My Chemical fucking Romance, motherfucker!”

* * *

May came on them like a bullet train. They had no luck securing a permanent drummer on their own, much to everyone’s distress - they’d played all their Jersey shows with a rotating cast of fill-ins, and nobody fit. The good ones were already in bands and the shitty ones were, well, shitty. Gerard was up to two Xanax on a normal day and the whole thing still kept him up at night, not to mention the extra agony it piled onto his already-rampant stage fright. He threw up before every show. Just when he was starting to think he’d need to move on to, like, horse tranquilizers to get through their sets without dying, a miracle arrived. For all of Brian’s insistence that he refused to get involved, telling them that “it’s your fault you couldn’t work out your problems internally, so no, I _ don’t _ feel like this is a problem I need to solve for you,” when they called him in desperation anyway - of course it ended up being Brian who fixed everything.

It happened partly by accident. At first he’d talked Bob into coming with them on the tour to do sound. Bob flew out from Chicago to meet them about a month before they were due to leave. He was a reticent, amiable guy who said hello and then nothing else for a solid half an hour at their first meeting. Not that he could’ve gotten a word in edgewise. They (Gerard) bitched to Brian for practically the entire meeting about how they _ were not _ going to find a drummer in time, and their first international tour was going to be an unmitigated disaster if Brian didn’t help them because they’d been looking and auditioning people for _ months, _ and why did Brian want them to fail, did he want this band to fall apart, seriously Brian _ please _? As what usually happened with these things, they’d splintered into four corners by the end. Frank had just left Brian’s office altogether, but Gerard could hear him swearing to himself just outside the door. Over the course of the argument Gerard had clawed his hair into an irredeemable rat’s nest, fast approaching tears and now stood staring out a window at the building across the street, sucking down cigarette smoke at mach speed.

This was gonna be the end of the fucking band. He’d already tried calling Otter on his own to grovel, and Otter never called him back, and he didn’t have Kat’s number anymore to ask her if the guy she’d dumped him for still played. He was officially out of leads, and so was everyone else. They were fucked. Gerard pushed his fingertips between his eyes hard enough to hurt, and fought against the salt sting prickling in his eyes.

The dense, frosty silence that had descended upon the room was broken by someone clearing their throat. Everyone startled, and looked at Bob, who sat looking up at the ceiling with his arms crossed over his chest. Even after the bickering, he seemed unfazed. “So,” he began, and dropped his chin to look at all of them. He sniffed. “I guess this is where I tell you that I also play drums.”

Gerard split into a grin so huge it felt grotesque at the same time Ray’s head shot up from where he’d been pressing it against the back of Mikey’s chair. “You _ do?” _ they squealed in unison. From behind his desk, Brian smashed the heel of his palm against his forehead and groaned.

“God damn it, Bryar. Now I have to _ pay _ you.”

Bob stuck around that weekend to watch them practice, and learned how to play Monroeville in about four hours, which was kind of amazing. He took a copy of _ Bullets _ and some sheet music Ray made for him back to Chicago, and came back two weeks later to play a trial show with them at Relic in New Brunswick. To Gerard’s relief, it was the best show they played in months - even though he was somehow even more anxious than usual and accidentally skipped a section of Cubicles - and it was _ fun _ in a way it hadn’t been in a long fucking time. He realized about halfway through the set that everyone was smiling while they played, Mikey included, which so rarely happened at all that Gerard ran over and threw an arm around his neck to scream in his face for a couple lines. Mikey shoulder-checked him away eventually, but he was grinning. After, in the hallway, Frank jumped on Bob’s back with a yell and clung to him with all his limbs like a koala in a tree.

“Bob fuckin’ Bryar! Now I don’t have to get a real job!” he cheered, grinning so wide his eyes were screwed shut, and Bob tolerated the assault for all of three seconds before prying Frank off and dumping him on the floor.

“Don’t climb on me, you little shit,” he said, but he was smiling, and he let Gerard hug him with only slightly less enthusiasm than Frank had.

Just like that, they had their drummer (and Brian had to find a new sound guy for the tour). Gerard was so caught up in the euphoria of finally _ having _ a drummer that he sort of zoned out on the other insane stuff - packing, a trip to the doctor to get topped off on vaccines (traumatizing, required an Ativan), a last flurry of get-togethers with everyone he wouldn’t see for the rest of the summer - until suddenly he was stumbling half-asleep out of Heathrow airport at seven in the morning. He held a coffee he didn’t remember buying in one hand and dragged the suitcase his grandma had given him in the other. It hit him when he caught a glimpse of a license plate on a passing car; he froze there on the sidewalk and stared at it for a moment.

“Holy shit,” he said out loud, as Frank lumbered up beside him with his own suitcase. “Holy shit, Frank, we’re in _ London. _”

Frank yawned with almost his entire body, and nodded with his eyebrows drawn together. “Yeah, man. I guess you missed the part where we were on a plane for eighty years.” He plucked the coffee from Gerard’s hand and slurped at it, handing it back to him half-full before leaning his cheek so heavily into Gerard’s shoulder that Gerard teetered off-balance for a second. “God, I _ hate _flying. It’s like extra slow time travel,” he grumbled, sotto voce.

Gerard snorted. “Oh, you poor thing. Here’s me feeling so sorry for you.” Frank swatted at him grumpily, and Gerard laughed.

“No napping,” said Brian, who popped up on Frank’s other side to lightly slap him upside the head; Frank groaned, and burrowed his face deeper into the crook of Gerard’s neck in response. “You have to adjust on day one, or you never will. Trust me.”

“I know better than you,” Frank mumbled against Gerard’s collar, quiet enough that only Gerard could hear him, but stood upright and stretched his arms over his head with another yawn. Gerard tried - and failed - not to peek at the exposed ‘Search and Destroy’ tattoo. He took a long sip from his coffee and tried to push the sensation of Frank’s mouth moving against his skin out of his mind, too. Lately he’d pretty much given up on the hope that he and Frank would ever be anything more than best friends. The kiss outside Mikey’s party seemed like it had happened in another lifetime, and Frank had been so drunk Gerard doubted he remembered it anyway. He still wanted Frank. Badly. Like, high school, staring-in-class, if-he-doesn’t-ask-me-to-prom-I’ll-die badly. But, the more time passed, the more obvious it became that Frank probably just wasn’t into him that way. He couldn’t be. Because if something was going to happen, it would have by now. Right? Gerard stared down at his shoes and sighed to himself.

“Hey.” Frank nudged his shoulder, and Gerard’s chin jerked up. “You okay? You had the lost puppy dog eyebrows going on there.”

Despite himself, Gerard burst out giggling. “The _ what? _Puppy dog eyebrows?”

Brian reappeared between the two of them then, to push them in the direction of a van that had turned up at the curb and already contained Mikey, Ray, and Bob, along with all of their stuff. “Glad you’re awake enough to flirt, kids, but we have an itinerary. Move it.”

“Jesus, it’s not flirting, it’s called being concerned,” said Frank, annoyed, as he walked around to the back of the van to toss in his gear, and Gerard’s heart sank like a rock. He trailed behind Frank and said nothing, slotting his suitcase into the last available space; Mikey shuffled over on the front bench to let Gerard have the spot by the window, and Gerard offered him a grateful smile before turning his head and leaning his forehead against the glass.

This was gonna be a long tour.

* * *

Seated in front of a vanity with greenish light bulbs that made him look undead, Gerard stared down at the tiny arsenal of theatre makeup he’d amassed from a shop in the West End and felt something dangerously close to panic gnawing at his insides. He’d taken his two Xanax already, a couple hours before. A third beckoned. He tried to ignore it. The closest he’d been to wearing makeup onstage was the fake blood he’d taken to soaking himself with at their recent shows back in Jersey. And while wearing a little eyeshadow or liner to a club every now and again was fine, something about doing it for an audience - especially an unknown audience - put him on edge. It was different somehow. Meant more. It wasn’t just fucking around for art school or slipping on a temporary mask; this was making it part of his image. This was a _ commitment. _

He reached for the foundation, so pale it was almost white, but yanked his hand back at the last second. He reached for the eyeshadow, but ran into the same problem. It was like he was hitting an invisible barrier or something. He pushed his fingers over his mouth and let out a troubled breath through his nose. What the fuck was his damage? Makeup wasn’t a new thing to him. It wasn’t even new to rock and roll, Jesus, Bowie was doing it balls-to-the-wall before Gerard was even _ alive. _ So what was he so fucking nervous about? He propped his elbows against the tabletop and leaned in close to the mirror, peering at his reflection with his mouth hard-set in determination.

“It’s not groundbreaking,” he told himself, and closed his eyes for a second. “It’s pigment, binder, and a vehicle. Art on your face. You’ve painted your face a hundred times. It doesn’t have to be a fuckin’ fashion statement.” He blew out a breath, opened his eyes again, and then bared his teeth at the mirror.

“Ooh, battle face,” said Frank at his shoulder, and Gerard gave a violent start. He whipped his head around to find Frank standing off to the side of the vanity, watching Gerard with a sly smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

_ Yeah right, _ Gerard didn’t say. “Thought it was just me in here,” he said instead. He settled back in his chair to survey his kit again. “Didn’t you need to fix something with your guitar?”

They hadn’t said much to each other since that morning at the airport. Or, well. That wasn’t true. Frank had said a lot to _ him _ all day; Gerard just hadn’t found it in him to respond much. He’d kind of been looking forward to getting ready for the show in solitude. Having Frank here reminded him why he’d wanted that in the first place. He hoped that didn’t show on his face now.

If it did, Frank didn’t seem to notice. He hopped up and sat on the edge of the table, his back leaning against the mirror, and his shoes didn’t quite touch the floor. “It can wait. I like watching you psych yourself up, it’s fun.”

Gerard did not feel especially fun. He felt more like he might crawl out of his skin and die bleeding. Still, he managed a tight smile at Frank before dropping his gaze.

“You gonna try out a new look tonight?” Frank continued, looking over Gerard’s spread. Gerard bobbed his head back and forth.

“Thinking about it. Haven’t decided.” His fingers twitched over an eyeliner pencil - the most familiar tool on the table, one he’d used a million times. _ Come on, motherfucker, just take the cap off. _

Frank picked up an eyeshadow pot. “Why’s that?”

“Uh.” Gerard watched as Frank popped the lid off and dipped his pinky in the pigment. “I don’t…I don’t know, really,” he admitted, fingers twisting in his lap. “I’m sort of - bugging about wearing makeup on stage.”

“But you wear eyeliner all the time,” Frank pointed out, and Gerard made an impatient noise and flung his arms wide.

“Exactly! It’s stupid, I don’t know why I’m hung up on it.”

Frank studied the tip of his finger, stained crimson with eyeshadow, and then glanced up at Gerard through his lashes. “Would it help if you did mine first?”

Gerard couldn’t stop his eyes from getting huge, but he did manage to tamp down a grin by biting the inside of his lip. “You want to wear - this? Like, full out?” Frank nodded. “Are you sure?”

“It’s like you said. Art on my face.” Frank turned his torso to face the mirror as much as he could, raised his pinky to his face, and dragged a faint line of red through one of his eyebrows. He smirked at the result, and then turned back to Gerard. “Paint me like one of your French girls,” he drawled, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead like a swooning maiden, and Gerard snorted.

“Were you even alive when _ Titanic _ came out?” he retorted. He pulled his stuff closer, reaching first for the foundation, and then held his hand out expectantly to Frank, who plonked the eyeshadow pot into his palm.

“I was two,” Frank said primly, and crossed his arms. “My mom took me to see it with her because my dad wouldn’t go.”

Gerard was already half-planning a look in his head for Frank, setting up supplies in the order he’d need them, and also grabbed a bottle of makeup remover out of his bag on the floor. “Jesus. That movie’s, like, three hours long. I can’t imagine getting you to sit still _ now _ for that long, let alone as a toddler.”

“According to her I conked out in less than twenty minutes.” Frank grinned while Gerard laughed. “I still think that movie’s fuckin’ boring as shit. Even the sex scene was lame.”

“It’s not boring. It’s just…badly paced.” Gerard set a little box of Q-tips beside the makeup remover, and then stood, pushing the chair aside. “You wanna help me design the look, or…?”

Frank shrugged. “I trust you.” He dropped his hands into his lap, folded them, and closed his eyes. “This is your area of expertise, anyway.”

“I guess.” Gerard poured a little foundation on the back of his hand. It looked stark against his skin, even with the fact that Gerard was pretty fucking pale to begin with. He glanced between it and Frank’s face for a second. “Tilt your chin up for me?” Frank obliged, and Gerard dabbed a smear of foundation on his jaw with his fingertip, then stepped back to examine the result under light. Hmm. Yeah, maybe not. The undead look wouldn’t suit Frank as well. “Alright, I think I know what I wanna do.”

He used the rest of the foundation he’d already poured out as primer for Frank’s eyelids, and then picked up the red eyeshadow, along with a sponge. With a careful hand, he tapped it along one of his top lids with a corner of the sponge, blending it out in spots with his pinky, before pulling away to see it in full. “Okay, open your eyes and look straight up,” he instructed, and Frank did.

“You’re so gentle,” he commented as Gerard went to work on his bottom lid. “You do this on other people a lot?”

Gerard nearly choked. He did blush, hard, and coughed once to cover up the fact that he’d almost swallowed his own tongue. “Uh. No. Just myself.” He finished the lower half, and then worked on the other eye to match them. Done with the red, he picked up the black shadow, and a brush with a fine little tuft of bristles on the end - he dusted just a little of it right along Frank’s lash line on the top and bottom, and then grabbed the eyeliner.

All the while, he dreaded hearing the sound of the dressing room door creaking open and putting an end to…whatever _ this _ was. The other guys were all doing equipment checks and he prayed they would stay gone long enough for Gerard to finish. He felt almost claustrophobic having this moment with Frank. He could hear the slow breaths Frank took through his nose, and feel how his skin shifted under Gerard’s ministrations - he hadn’t been this close to Frank in months. The room was still, and so quiet that every sound Gerard made felt amplified. Gerard stared for a second, just a second, at Frank’s mouth, while Frank’s eyes were closed. If he wanted - if he gathered all his nerve, and pressed in just a couple inches - Gerard bit his lip, hard, and shook his head at himself. Fuck, get a grip.

“You okay?” said Frank, eyes still closed, and Gerard nodded before remembering Frank couldn’t see it.

“Yeah. Just, uh, deciding on placement.” He uncapped the eyeliner, and unthinkingly took Frank’s chin in his left hand to hold him steady - he widened his eyes when he realized what he was doing, and quickly let go again. “Sorry.”

Frank opened one eye, and smiled at him. “S’alright. I don’t mind.”

Gerard screamed in his head, nodded, and took a silent breath before holding Frank’s chin again. He had Frank open his eyes and look up to tight-line both bottom lids before making quick work of the top lids, and then spent a couple seconds warming the liner tip against his wrist. Once it was nice and smearable, he dragged two long, crossed lines over both closed eyes to form huge X’s. He grinned at the result.

“You’re gonna look so fuckin’ sweet, Frankie,” he said, grabbing the black eyeshadow and an even smaller brush to pat shadow over the lines. After some deliberation, he picked up the pencil again and lengthened the X’s down his cheeks and up through his eyebrows, touching them up with black powder as he went. He set down all of his tools, took a few steps back to examine it all as a whole, and nodded once to himself. “Okay, done. Tell me what you think.”

Frank jumped down off the vanity table. He kept his eyes closed as he turned to face the mirror, and then opened them - his mouth dropped open, and he gasped, and Gerard’s heart seized in his chest for a split second in terror before Frank pushed himself even closer to the mirror by splaying both hands on the table with an _ enormous _ grin.

“Oh my God, Gerard, this is _ incredible _!” he crowed, and spun around to turn the full force of his smile on Gerard, who melted instantly. “It’s - it’s so much fucking cooler than Danzig. Holy shit.” He returned to the mirror, and pulled a series of Misfits-esque faces at himself.

“You like it?” said Gerard, feeling suddenly shy.

“I love it. Fuck, I love it. I have never looked this badass in my whole life,” Frank declared, and shoved away from the vanity to throw both arms around Gerard in excitement. “Thank you so much, dude!”

“It was…nothing, really,” Gerard demurred, but that was a lie, and he returned the hug with his insides feeling like they were made of helium and also gold. Frank loved it, thank fuck; Gerard probably would’ve had to quit the tour and disappear to Antarctica if he hadn’t. “Thanks for letting me practice on you.”

“I have to go show the guys. I want them to be jealous of how fucking good I look.” Frank stepped away, and beamed at Gerard again before looking back at the mirror from where they were. “Fuckin’ genius. I’m like…crossed out! So cool!” He made a break for the door. “I’ll catch you later!”

Alone in the quiet of the dressing room again, Gerard floated back to the vanity, and dragged his chair in front of it again. Okay. Okay. If Frank was that stoked to wear Gerard’s art on his face, in front of people, then Gerard could be, too. He rearranged his stuff, looked at himself for a second, and then covered his face with both hands to scream into them.

* * *

Frank practically teleported into the wings when the time finally came for them to play. Between the brand new crowd and the brand new look, he felt like he - no, _ they _ \- were on the cusp of some huge, new _ something _. He didn’t know what. It just seemed big. His guitar was a solid weight around his neck to keep him from floating entirely away from the floor, and even though his heart was beating like a motherfucker he felt strangely calm. He buzzed his fingers up and down the length of the fret board and rolled his shoulders a couple times. This was the most in-the-zone he’d felt in a long time. No last minute repairs before the set to distract him, no communication from Them at all since the night before.

He felt almost like a free man. It felt so fucking _ good. _

Gerard looked like he was feeling the same energy Frank was, if a lesser version of it. It was hard to tell with Gerard sometimes. He drank a lot before they played, that was a given by now, but he didn’t seem to get drunk so much as he seemed to get less nervous. After the shows he would _ for sure _ get drunk, like, kind of worrying drunk, but so did Frank. So did they all. It didn’t really seem to be a problem the way it sounded like it had been in all the research Frank had done back before he’d met Gerard. Gerard wasn’t doing any of the crazy shit some of the articles had talked about, like falling off the stage or disappearing in the middle of tours. Maybe that meant something was different this time. Maybe July 25th wouldn’t happen.

Frank watched Gerard jump up and down in place a couple times, shake out his arms, all the while mouthing something to himself that Frank couldn’t make out at first until Gerard started repeating it. _ One tough motherfucker. One tough motherfucker. One tough motherfucker. Unleash the fucking bats. _

Oh. A huge smile spread over Frank’s face, and he looked away as his chest swelled. God. Gerard was his best _ fucking _friend.

His new look was fucking cool, too. It was kind of hard to see now in the dark of backstage, but he’d seen it in the hall under the fluorescents. He’d really packed on the red eyeshadow, even more than he had with Frank’s look, with solid rings of eyeliner and so much of that pale foundation he looked like he’d been dead for a week. And of course, he’d splattered his shirt with fake blood. Gerard had gotten really into the whole fake blood thing, it was fun.

The stage lights went blue - the signal for them to walk on. Frank cracked his neck, then his knuckles, and stalked out to his stage right mic like it owed him money. This was gonna be so good. They were gonna melt some fucking faces and unleash the fucking bats. He looked to center stage just in time to see Gerard square his shoulders and saunter up to the mic stand like the spirit of rock itself had possessed him; he popped the mic out of its mount and wound the cable around his wrist once, twice, like he always did. Something about it made Frank feel something different tonight, though. 

“London!” Gerard screamed. Frank shivered as a bolt of electricity went through him just at the sound of his voice through the PA. “We are motherfucking My Chemical Romance from motherfucking New Jersey, and you are gonna remember this night for a long fuckin’ time! LET’S GO!”

They opened with Sorrows - it felt fitting for tonight. Frank flung himself on the floor and ended up staying there before the bridge had even begun. Ray drove them straight into Halos without pause, and then Honey, and it wasn’t until after Gerard and Frank had screamed the last refrain into each other’s faces that Gerard got a chance to address the crowd again.

“How’s everyone fuckin’ doing out there, you all feeling good?” he asked, strutting over to Ray’s side of the stage. Frank took the opportunity to crouch by his pedalboard and make some adjustments, sticking his pick in his mouth as he knelt. The crowd responded with enthusiasm - it was pretty packed but still a smallish venue, so Frank could pick out individual voices. One, a man’s in a sneering tone, piped up from the back, “IS THAT EYESHADOW?”.

Frank rolled his eyes. As though glam rock hadn’t done eyeshadow to death already. He switched a cable into another pedal.

“Yeah, dude. It’s a fuckin’ nice-ass one, too, one teeny tiny little pot of it cost me, like, five pounds.” His voice sounded confident and dismissive, but Gerard beelined back to his mic stand; a nervous move. Frank watched him out of the corner of his eye. Why was he nervous? They got heckled all the time for dumber shit than this. “What, you don’t like my eyeshadow? Even though I look so fuckin’ pretty?”

“YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKIN’ QUEER,” shouted a different man’s voice from another part of the room, and Frank tensed, staring at a knob with sudden concern. Oh shit.

“Do I?” Gerard drawled, unmoved. “Anyway, other than those two dumbshits, how are the _ rest _ of you doin’? Cause I’m having a grand ole time - “

“LOSE THE EYELINER, FAGGOT!”

Frank’s head shot up so fast he saw stars. Red stars, because he was also fucking _ pissed. _ “What the fuck did you just say?” he yelled, still kneeling, and scrambled up to his feet to grab hold of his mic. A murmur had started through the room, bouncing around, buzzing; Frank shouted to top it. “You wanna say shit like that, you get the fuck out and find a different show to crash, got it?”

The murmur became a dull roar. Frank ripped his guitar strap over his head and propped the guitar against an amp. Center stage, Gerard turned his head to look at Frank; both of his hands gripped his mic, and he shot Frank a pleading look over the top of it. _ Don’t hit them, _ he mouthed at Frank. _ I’ll stop it. _ “Yeah,” he said aloud, turning back to the room, “We don’t have time for homophobic shit at our shows, alright? We’re here to shred faces and that’s all. This next song is - “

“QUEERS CAN’T SHRED!” someone yelled, and Gerard faltered, but squared his shoulders and kept going. 

“It’s about killing someone cause you can’t stand their fuckin’ face,” he said, and despite the overwhelming urge to fling himself into the crowd and start landing punches, Frank moved to pick up his guitar again.

“GO ON, FAGGOTS! LET’S SEE A SNOG THEN!” a voice jeered.

With an almost audible twang, Frank’s patience snapped. He whipped around from his half-stack. “ALRIGHT,” he bellowed, even though it was mostly lost to the clamor the last remark had caused within the crowd. His blood fizzing, Frank bared his teeth at them all. “You wanna see a faggot? I’ll show you a fucking faggot, you backward inbred dipshits!”

Amid the wave of audible confusion, Frank moved before his brain had a chance to scream at him to stop, do not pass fucking go; he sped toward center stage like it was a car magnet and he was an iron filing, and Gerard - oh Gerard, he looked so - how dare they talk like that to his best friend, how fucking _ dare _ they, Frank stomped up to Gerard with fire blazing all the way down to his fucking _ organelles _, and Gerard just stared at him with those wide eyes in bewilderment, and Frank stared right back for a heartbeat.

And then he grabbed either side of Gerard’s face, yanked him forward, and kissed him for all he was worth.


	15. Quit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When was the last time you played a show sober?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, everyone! I hope you're all doing okay and hanging in there. Strange times indeed.
> 
> Thank you again, Priya, for your excellent commentary and editing prowess, and another huge thank you to Momo for being a fresh pair of eyes and for letting me yell at you. I love and appreciate you both more than words can express. <3
> 
> This chapter finally earns the E rating I ascribed it all the way back in August, so if that's not your bag, feel free to skip that part, it's pretty brief.
> 
> [Find me on Tumblr](https://justlookatthewheat.tumblr.com) if you hang out there, and if you don't, just shriek out of your bedroom window and I'll probably hear you. Hope you all enjoy!

Gerard didn’t know what he expected Frank to do when he got to him. Maybe punch him? Drag him offstage? Kiss him was dead fucking last on any list of possibilities Gerard might’ve put together, though, so when it happened, he just - froze. His heart stopped in his chest. Time itself screeched to a halt. The noise in the venue spiked with cheers and jeers alike, but Gerard barely heard it over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. He couldn’t move, or breathe, let alone find it in himself to kiss back. He didn’t know how long it lasted, but eventually Frank let go, his hands falling away from Gerard’s face as he leaned past him to deliver a cool “Fuck you” into the microphone with both his middle fingers raised at the crowd.

“Holy shit,” said Mikey somewhere behind Gerard, which summed up Gerard’s feelings about the whole thing, too. Still stricken, he watched Frank stalk back to stage right, snatch up his guitar, and sling the strap around his neck again without so much as a backward glance.

Gerard turned back to his mic stand. His hands were still piled on top of it, fingers clenched so tight they were bloodless. Was he fucking dreaming? Frank _kissed_ him. In front of hundreds of people, including his brother. As a - statement? Protest? He didn’t know what the hell Frank was getting at, exactly, but it wasn’t the romantic fit of passion he might have hoped for. A knot was forming in the middle of his chest. He looked out over the crowd without seeing them, the stage lights turning them all to murky silhouettes. They were riled, and he couldn’t really tell if it was in a good or a bad way. No one seemed to be scrambling for the exits, though, and no one had thrown anything at them, so.

With a deep breath against the knot, Gerard threw his head back, and when he dropped his chin again he reasserted his stage persona with a sneer. “So,” he said, dragging out the “o,” “Ladies, gentlemen, neither, both - we now return you to our regularly scheduled rock and roll. Brought to you by a bunch of eyeshadow-wearing queers, and the letter F!” He flipped them a two-fingered salute, and then whirled around to cue Bob, who tapped them into Drowning Lessons with a jerk of his chin.

They didn’t get heckled again the rest of the set. Gerard managed to shove down the lingering uncertainty, and Frank managed to single-handedly destroy the stage. At the very end, he ripped off the set list taped next to his pedal board, lit it on fire, and then flung it into the crowd before anyone could stop him. Once they’d made it offstage amid the chaos that ensued, an apoplectic Brian immediately shoved him up against a wall in the hallway.

“Are you out of your _fucking mind_?” Brian yelled in Frank’s face. “Setting the crowd on fire? Are you shitting me? What the hell is wrong with you!”

Frank pushed Brian away with a scowl. “Fucking relax, Brian, Christ. It went out before it hit anyone, I was just -”

“Just being a fucking idiot! Do you have any idea how much harder you make my job when you pull this kind of crap?”

Ray jumped in with a hand on Brian’s shoulder, urging him back. “Guys, please, let’s not do this in the hallway - “

“Am I just supposed to tolerate the shit they yell at us, Brian? At Gerard?” Frank snapped back, and Gerard winced, turning away to look at a poster of Blur tacked to the far wall instead. Damon Albarn’s face was scribbled over with black marker. “Because I tell you what, that makes _my_ fucking job hard! Having to just grin and bear it while they call Gerard a fag every time he opens his mouth?”

Brian crossed his arms over his chest. “And yet, it’s never _Gerard_ whose ass I have to cover,” he said. “Maybe you could take some cues from him in emotional maturity. Gerard, thank you for never hauling off and trying to set a venue on fire because the crowd were mean to you.”

Gerard, not wanting to get involved, just shrugged and shouldered his way into the dressing room to start taking off his makeup with Ray and Mikey right behind him. Thankfully, neither of them seemed interested in talking; Mikey did nudge him and give him the _you okay_ eyebrows, but didn’t push it when Gerard nodded. Gerard used up probably half a tree’s worth of tissues getting all the foundation off his face - he’d thought with how much he’d been sweating it would be easier, but apparently “theatrical makeup” meant “you’ll be wearing this until you decompose”. Despite his best efforts the eyeshadow had stained his eyelids, so the end result looked very three-day-bender and Gerard gave up trying to scrub it off. By the time he started packing up his kit, Ray and Mikey were already heading to the bar, and he couldn’t hear Frank or Brian bickering anymore. He shoved everything into his bag except the makeup remover and what was left of the tissues, for Frank to use whenever he came back. Then he wiped up the vanity, slung his bag over his shoulder, and took a long second to peer at his reflection before he flipped off the ring lights. The door opened as he crossed to it.

“Oh, hey,” he said, as Frank pushed his way inside. Butterflies erupted in Gerard’s stomach the instant he laid eyes on him. “Um. Everything okay? With - Brian and stuff?”

Frank said nothing. His hood was up, and his expression was dark - and missing any trace of makeup, Gerard noticed. Also, Frank hadn’t been wearing a hoodie when they’d played. His eyes were fixed mostly on the floor as he cast about for his backpack. Gerard watched him uncertainly, hands curled slightly, fingers digging into his palms.

“Frankie,” he called, a little louder, but Frank didn’t turn around. He grabbed one of the straps of his backpack and slung one arm through it, gripping it around his shoulder seam before he rubbed over his face with his free hand and heaved a sigh. Gerard tucked his tongue up into his gums. Okay, well. If Frank thought he could ignore Gerard until the conversation hanging over their heads disappeared, he was sorely fucking mistaken. Gerard marched over and waved his hand in front of Frank’s face. “Hey!”

Frank jumped; he grabbed a twin pair of wires snaking up to his ears and yanked out the earbuds hidden under his hoodie. Gerard dropped his hand, chagrined. Oh. “Sorry! I didn’t think you’d still be in here,” said Frank. Now that the headphones were dangling from Frank’s hand, Gerard could hear the tinny sound of “Jinx Removing” leaking from the tiny speakers. Frank smiled at him. “What’s up?”

Gerard gaped at him for a second. What’s up? Was Frank on fucking _crack_? His anger returned in a flood of heat to his cheeks, and Gerard straightened up and set his jaw. “We need to talk about the kiss.”

“What kiss?” Frank furrowed his brows, then seemed to think about it for a moment, and his face cleared. “Oh! Oh, are we - right, it’s only been what, like twenty minutes since I saw you? Holy shit.” He plunged his hand into his hair, knocking his hood back in the process, and Gerard’s jaw dropped. Frank's hair was - so different, Jesus Christ, Gerard started to reach out and touch it almost on instinct. He’d shaved and bleached the sides, leaving the middle long and black, and the one sort of twirly part he kept in the very front was long enough to brush his chin.

“Your _hair_,” was all Gerard managed to say. Frank gave a sort of wan smile.

“Yeah. I got involved with some, uh, interesting folks on my most recent repair and they did this to me.” He wrapped his finger around the long front strand and tugged on it. “I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

Gerard grinned, forgetting all about the kiss for a moment in the wake of this new gift. “You look _awesome_,” he told Frank earnestly. “I mean, I don’t know how the hell you’re gonna explain it, but it’s fuckin’ sick.”

Frank perked up at that. “You think?” He let go of his bangs and stuffed his headphones into his pocket. “I was about to run out and get hair dye, but maybe I’ll keep it a little longer if you think it looks good.”

“No, totally keep it! It’ll look great with the makeup, if you - if you wanted to keep, uh, doing that.” And then he remembered that yeah, the makeup _had _been poorly received, and Frank’s reactions had been kind of, well. Extreme. Involving kissing and fire. Gerard rubbed the back of his neck. “Um. Maybe not.”

Frank snorted, and lifted his chin. “A couple intolerant dickheads can’t diminish how good I look in that makeup you did. I’m gonna rock that shit every night of this tour. Anyone who doesn’t like it can blow me.”

A huge wave of - _something_ swelled in Gerard’s throat at that. Pride or admiration or what, he didn’t know, but he had to swallow a couple of times before he could respond. “Fuck yeah,” he said at last, and ducked his head for a moment to hide the fact that he was welling up a little bit. “I can, um, teach you how to do it yourself, if you want.”

“Man, but if I do it, it’ll look like garbage. Don’t let me play myself like that.” Gerard giggled, and Frank grinned, adjusted his backpack strap, and then reached out his arm to sling it around Gerard’s neck and direct him toward the door. “Come on, let’s go get drunk and I’ll tell you all about this last repair. It was so fucking weird, Gee, I should write a book whenever I finally get away from Them. So I got assigned to this girl in Tucson, right, and the sheer _balls_ on this chick are fucking legendary. She decides to jump up into the bed of a bone collector redneck’s truck and cut down the Confederate flag the dude’s got erected there…”

Gerard got so wrapped up in Frank, and then in drinking with everyone else, that he didn’t remember to ask Frank about the stage kiss again until he was in bed at the hostel they were staying in that night, just before he passed out. He resolved to talk to Frank about it in the morning - and so, naturally, it didn’t come up at all. It wasn’t until they were on stage in Paris a few nights later, actually, that he thought to broach the subject, and only because it was happening again.

This time it was toward the end of the set, and it was just one lone drunk guy yelling different things at them in French that Gerard only sort of understood until he started repeating the phrase _“T’es un sale pédé,”_ which, alright, Gerard went to art school, he knew what that one fucking meant.

_“Merci, connard,”_ he called cheerily to the guy, waving to where the sound was coming from before flipping him off. “Yeah, this fucking fag speaks shitty French, so fuck off, dude!”

Frank turned his head so fast his hair flopped into his eyes, and he made eye contact with Gerard to mouth, _Again?! _at him. Gerard nodded and rolled his eyes. Frank looked pissed, but didn’t make any moves toward him. Until, in the middle of Sorrows, Gerard swiveled around from head banging with Ray to find Frank sauntering over to center, his eyes half-lidded and fixed on Gerard. He crooked a finger at him in a come-hither motion, and Gerard, oblivious, obliged. Frank leaned over as soon as Gerard got close enough and wrapped Gerard’s tie around his hand. He grinned for a split second, the stage lights flashing off his lip ring, and then he tugged Gerard over his guitar and crushed their mouths together.

Gerard froze, again - it was still a shock - but this time, he managed to shove aside his astonishment to kiss Frank back. Surely a second time meant participation was allowed, so fuck it. He even took it a step further, and slipped his tongue into Frank’s open mouth, which made Frank stop playing altogether to hold on to either of Gerard’s lapels. Encouraged by this and by the screaming from the crowd, Gerard fisted his hand into the long hair at the nape of Frank’s neck and jerked his head back to lick a stripe from the scorpion tattoo on Frank’s neck to the corner of his mouth. He splayed his hand flat against Frank’s chest, and then shoved him back toward stage right with a sneer, licking his lips as he did; Frank whirled away in a blur of movement, hands back on his guitar, and as they closed out their set, Gerard made sure to blow a kiss in Drunk Asshole’s direction.

Backstage, Mikey lobbed an empty beer bottle at Gerard as they were packing up the green room. “Did you guys forget that I’m onstage with you, too?” he griped, and popped open his guitar case. “Because I didn’t consent to being in your scene. Also, I’m your _brother_. Gross.”

“Mikey, Frank and I both once watched you molest a club dancer in front of thousands of people. Consider this payback,” said Gerard airily, and Ray, who was trying to pry a bottle cap off a beer with his teeth, stopped to gasp with glee.

“Oh my God, you _what_?” he crowed, and Mikey instantly flushed scarlet and stuttered out a half-assed explanation while Bob and Gerard busted up laughing.

Frank vanished somewhere between leaving the stage and returning to their hotel, which made Brian do the thing where he’d pace in small circles and mutter to himself about “fucking band assholes going to drive me to an early grave,” until Frank called him and told him he’d ended up at a club down the street and that everyone else should meet him there because it was “dope as fuck”. Ray, Mikey, and Bob all ended up going; Gerard decided that since he couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d showered he probably needed one, and Brian had paperwork to do, so they both got in the van back to the hotel while the other three set off on foot.

All Gerard could think about on the ride to the hotel was Frank’s hands fisting in his shirt collar; his open mouth, soft and wet and hot; the way his tongue slid against his own, a tease and a claim all at once. How he’d felt a moan buzz in Frank’s throat when he dragged his tongue along the length of it. When he closed his eyes, Gerard could still taste the sourish salt of Frank’s skin. Recalling each moment tugged a hook just behind his navel and triggered a bright burst of fresh arousal like a solar flare - it made for a fucking uncomfortable trip. He folded up his legs as much as his too-tight jeans would allow, kept his fists curled in his lap, and stared out the window, grunting out the occasional one-word reply whenever Brian tried to talk to him.

He wished Frank hadn’t left. They really, really needed to talk. And possibly (hopefully) do some other things. 

It took approximately ten billion years to check in and figure out who would be sharing with who. Gerard didn’t even try to seem interested, just plucked the key card from Brian’s hand when the chips finally fell and made a beeline for the elevators with all of his stuff. He ripped off his jacket, dumped his bags in a pile next to the TV, dug out his toiletry kit, and all but slammed the bathroom door. Gerard caught a short glimpse of himself in the mirror as he stripped down as fast as his hard-on would allow: his face was flushed, eyeliner smudged near his lashes where he hadn’t quite managed to rinse it off at the venue, hair flopping down over his forehead in stringy clumps. Was this what Frank saw, when he’d kissed him? Jesus, how embarrassing. But whatever, more pressing matters at hand, _and how_. He almost forgot to turn the water on in his hurry to get in the shower.

Gerard bit down on a moan of relief when he finally got a hand around his cock. It was so rare to get a moment of true privacy on tour; normally he’d take his time, drag it out a little with a fantasy, but tonight he was too fucking turned on to bother. He didn’t need to imagine anything and it wasn’t like he’d last long enough anyway. He gave himself a few short strokes to take the edge off, hot water spraying on the back of his neck, and then leaned past the curtain to fumble for his shower gel. Actually Mikey’s shower gel, but whatever, Mikey didn’t shower either and wouldn’t miss it. It smelled like grapefruit. He squeezed a generous dollop of it into his palm before returning promptly to his dick - the added slide made him hiss out a breath and turned his knees to jelly for a second, _Jee_-sus, he was further gone than he thought. Shuffling back under the spray, Gerard braced his other arm against the plastic shower wall and shoved his mouth into the crook of his elbow to muffle his moans. Just in case whoever he was sharing with came back. Eyes closed, he let himself return to the stage.

God, Frank was so fucking hot. All the time, but especially when they played. His face caught in the ecstasy of performance, his perfect eyebrows drawn together in concentration, and how Gerard would look over at him sometimes and find Frank staring at him like Gerard was the only person in the universe. Gerard keened softly, pressing his forehead against the tile, his hand moving faster over his cock. There was something about Frank’s eyes that made him feel - he didn’t even know. Seen, he supposed, in a way that was different from everyone else who watched him. His huge, beautiful eyes, like a fucking Disney animation, half-mast and smoldering from stage right, how they glittered green against the red eyeshadow Gerard was so, so glad he liked wearing so much. His new haircut looked better soaked in sweat and plastered to his head than it had a right to. It had felt sort of gross between Gerard’s fingers but also kind of perfect and oh, shit, that was - he groaned, and curled over himself, tongue between his teeth. He wanted to grab Frank’s hair and force him onto his knees, there in front of the crowd, and Frank would look up at him, all flushed with the eyeliner on his X-ed out eyes smeared on his glistening skin, his lips parted and wet and _fuck_, fuck fuck fuck Gerard wanted to just - just - he choked out a desperate sound against his own skin, too loud, shuddering, and then he was coming in a bright, wrenching burst all over his hand and the shower wall.

He stayed stuck there for a good minute, panting harshly, a sort of neon-buzz glow radiating through his limbs as he slowly came back down. Christ. He hoped he wasn’t gonna have some kind of auto-hard reaction now every time someone called them fags.

After a cursory follow-up shower, because what the hell, he was already in there and might as well clean up, Gerard emerged from the bathroom rubbing a towel over his hair and found Frank curled up on one of the beds, watching TV in the dark. He yelped, and scrambled to cover himself with the suddenly too small towel.

“Christ, Frank, how long have you been here?!” he absolutely did _not_ shriek, and seized the handle on his suitcase to drag it around the corner and out of sight. His cheeks hot, he dug frantically through the pockets for clean underwear. Oh God, _oh God_, what if Frank had overheard him, how did he even begin to broach that subject, did he really want to broach that subject at all? 

“Like ten minutes,” said Frank, sounding half-asleep and more amused than Gerard would have liked. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t listening to you jerk off in the shower.”

Gerard froze, clutching a pair of boxers that seemed clean enough, and wondered how best to kill himself with them for a long, long moment.

After several agonizing, drawn-out seconds, Frank eventually followed up, “That was a joke. Gerard? This is where you laugh and tell me how hilarious I am and then help me figure out what channel the freaky French arthouse movies are on. You said you speak French, right?”

He took a deep, silent breath through his nose. Okay, so Frank was just being his usual snarky self. Maybe not ideal for the conversation Gerard hoped they were about to have, but not actually mocking him either. It was hard to tell sometimes. “Not really. Mostly swear words,” he replied, and to his relief sounded normal enough. Gerard yanked on the boxers and an Iron Maiden shirt, and only then did he feel safe enough to venture back out. He ditched the towel on the bathroom floor before he went.

Frank had turned on the lamp between their beds while Gerard got dressed, and now he was sitting up on the edge of his mattress, stretching his arms over his head. “That’s fine, the real weird ones probably have swear words in the title.” He yawned.

“Didn’t think you’d be back this early,” said Gerard, even toned, and sat on the other bed opposite Frank, facing him. “I thought you were clubbing.”

“Had to tell Brian something.” He rolled his eyes and gave Gerard a kind of furtive look. “Coordinates on my watch got all fucked up before I came back. I almost ended up in the Seine. Finding my way back here was no small feat since I couldn’t read any of the fucking street signs.”

Gerard automatically scanned Frank for the signals he’d been gone, but didn’t find them. “Quick one,” he remarked. He folded his hands in his lap.

Frank cocked his head at him. “How’d you know?”

“Oh, uh.” Gerard flapped a hand at him. “Little things. Your hair’s not grown out. Same clothes you were wearing. Don’t worry, it’s not, you know, obvious.” He cleared his throat and stalled for a moment longer, pretending to inspect his fingernails while he tried to think of a way forward. “Frankie, um. Can we - can we talk?”

Frank was getting to his feet, though, and tugging at the bottom hem of the shirt Gerard was pretty sure was actually Mikey’s, and moving toward the bathroom. “Yeah, for sure, I’d love to. D’you mind if I shower first, though? My skin is crawling and I gotta go boil it before I’ll feel like a person again.”

Gerard almost let him. It was a reasonable request, and who knew where Frank had been on his repair, but he heard himself say with a surprising amount of resolve in his voice, “No. We need to talk now.”

Frank paused with his shirt halfway over his head, just for a second, and then pulled it all the way off. “Oh. Uh. Okay.” He tossed it in the direction of his own pile of stuff before turning back, hands slipping into his back pockets. “Something wrong?”

“You tell me.” Gerard twisted his fingers together. He briefly looked up and caught Frank’s eye before staring back down at the truly hideous burgundy carpet. No way was he gonna be able to get this out if he also had to look at Frank’s bare skin and all the tattoos he wasn’t allowed to touch. “You keep, um. Kissing me. On stage. And we’ve never, like, talked about it and every time it’s happened you’ve just disappeared right after, so. What’s that about?” He fidgeted, nerves prickling.

Across the room, Frank scratched idly at his shoulder. “Oh, that? I dunno, it’s sort of a protest, I guess. For the people who call us fags just because we wear makeup, you know? Like, ‘oh, you think eyeliner’s gay? Fuck you, that’s not gay, _this_ is gay.’ Cause nothing pisses off homophobes more than piling on the gay shit, right?” Frank grinned at him then, but when Gerard just stared at him, it faltered, and blinked out. “Um. Or not.”

Gerard felt sick to his stomach. Oh. So it wasn’t - Frank didn’t - didn’t actually like him that way. And Jesus, Gerard was totally not handling this well at all, Frank knew something was up now. Fuck. Why did he say anything? What was he hoping for, that Frank would suddenly confess his undying love and they’d live happily ever-fucking-after? What the fuck was he thinking? And now he was fucking stuck in this hotel room with him until tomorrow. Gerard pressed his fingers over his mouth. His heart was in his throat and his whole face was on fire and all he wanted was to jump out the fucking window or lock himself in the bathroom until Frank went away again. Tears threatened, hot and stinging, pricking at his eyes; he tried to disguise them by turning his head toward the nightstand between their beds.

“Gee? What’s wrong?” He heard Frank move toward him, and when he felt less like he was in imminent danger of dissolving on the spot, he looked back and found Frank knelt on the floor in front of him, brows furrowed in concern. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you before I did it. I just…sort of assumed you were okay with it, especially after tonight - “ He stopped short when Gerard waved both his hands in a desperate sort of gesture and shot to his feet. “Gerard,” Frank called, sounding bewildered, as Gerard paced to the other side of the room with both hands curling into his hair. “Come on, please, talk to me, you’re starting to freak me out.”

“_Fuck_ you,” Gerard snapped then, so suddenly that it surprised even him, and Frank recoiled like he’d been slapped. “Fuck you, Frank, what the _fuck! _You can’t just - just _use_ me as a prop to make a statement like that! Do you have any idea how dangerous that could be? For both of us? For the whole fucking _band?_ Taunting homophobes, yeah, fucking hilarious, right up until they call their friends and suddenly there’s a dozen of them and five of us and they all brought _knives._ We’re not in Jersey, Frank! If someone decides they wanna kick the shit out of us while we’re halfway across the world, we’re fucked!”

Frank blinked at him open-mouthed for a second, still on the floor. “You’re mad because you’re scared they’re gonna hurt us? Why?” He hauled himself up with the edge of the mattress and crossed to Gerard, eyes wide. “Gerard, I promise, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you guys. Ever.”

Gerard, incensed, flung his arms wide. “That’s not the fucking solution! You can’t go around punching everyone who calls us fags, not least because I’m learning there apparently aren’t enough hours in the _day_, but that’s just stupid violence and you know how much I hate_ \- _“

“That’s not what I meant,” Frank interrupted, a flush blooming on his cheeks. “Jesus Christ, I’m not a fucking pitbull.”

“With your fucking temper, you might as _well_ be,” Gerard shot back, and felt a sick twist of pleasure when Frank flinched. He hadn’t wanted to start a fight at all here, but the alternative was to break down sobbing and like _fuck_ was he going to do that in front of Frank. “You can’t just decide you’re gonna fight all my battles for me, either, because unlike you, I know how to pick them.”

“Maybe protecting you goes beyond the occasional douchebag calling you names,” Frank snapped, looking hurt. “You know, maybe there’s a fucking _reason_ I do these repairs. What would you say if I told you that of all the times I’ve had to leave, half of them have been for you? To make sure nothing happens to you? Holy shit, Gerard, you don’t - you don’t understand, and I can’t tell you anything about it, but there is so fucking much that you don’t know, okay?”

Gerard stared at Frank. Well, this was fucking news. “You’ve been - you’ve been time traveling because of _me?_”

Frank snorted, derisive. “Only since I fucking _met _you, asshole. God. Before that first repair I had no idea one person could be so temporally accident prone, but it’s just one fucking thing after another with you - but wait, I should let you pick your battles, right? Let you fuck up your life all on your own? See how fucking well _that_ goes.”

“I can take care of myself just fine,” Gerard protested, to which Frank barked out a short, bitter laugh.

“Oh, you think so, huh? Tell me, do the words ‘chemical dependency’ mean anything to you?”

Gerard’s eyebrows shot up as his jaw dropped. “Chemical dependency?” he repeated, incredulous. “Excuse me?”

Frank stalked over to where Gerard’s jacket lay in a heap on the floor, dug into one of the pockets, and flung Gerard’s bottle of Xanax at him, hard. Gerard just barely caught it before it hit him square in the face. “One bottle of these are supposed to last you a month. You refilled your prescription a week before we left Jersey, and it’s been two weeks and a day, so you should have what? About half a bottle left?” Frank came up and wrenched the bottle out of his hand again. “If there are ten pills in here, I’ll be shocked. You wanna find out, Gerard? Huh? Count them with me?” He rattled the bottle for emphasis, just in front of his nose, and Gerard swiped at them, his cheeks hot. Frank whipped them away. “That is not fucking normal, dude! What, are you snorting them now?”

“My medication is none of your fucking business,” Gerard bit out, grasping uselessly at Frank’s arm. “Give them back!”

“Like hell it isn’t my business! I’ve seen this shit before. I know it’s a fine fuckin’ line between managing anxiety and needing it just to function without twitching, and you are coming up on that line _real_ fast. To the point where I’m starting to worry about leaving you, in case you cross it while I’m not around, and that scares the shit out of me, okay?” Frank threw the bottle onto Gerard’s bed and crossed his arms over his chest with a glare. “Let me ask you something.”

“Fuck you,” Gerard automatically shot back. Frank’s eyes narrowed, but he wasn’t deterred.

“When was the last time you played a show sober?”

Gerard opened his mouth to retort, but got stuck when he realized he didn’t know. He stood for a moment, racking his brain, and apparently that was enough of an answer for Frank, who scoffed and shook his head.

“I’ll tell you. The answer is _never._” He dropped his arms by his sides; at the same time, his face shifted from anger to sadness. “My mom was the same way. She was a singer, too, she’d play with my dad’s band sometimes when I was little.” He sighed. “She was always high for those gigs. I didn’t know that’s what it was, but they used to fight about it, and I _did_ understand the yelling. It got worse when Dad left.” Frank swallowed, and ducked his head. “She never got better. She’d have those, like, fits of sobriety sometimes? You know, how real lifelong addicts get - they’ll chuck all their shit down the toilet or pour it down the sink or whatever and announce they’re going cold turkey, and they’ll handle the withdrawal symptoms for like two weeks, and then one day you walk in and they’re curled up on the bathroom floor again. She did that for - well, for my whole life.”

Frank set his jaw with a grim look before looking back up at Gerard. “I spent a lot of time as a kid checking pulses and cleaning up puke, and you know what? I’m not fucking keen on letting it happen to someone else I care about. So - fuck you, it _is_ my fucking business, god damn it.”

A long, tense beat of silence passed. Gerard had _no_ idea what to say to that. His instinct was an apology, but that felt weak and out of place, and nothing else came to mind. After a while, he cleared his throat. “That’s... shitty,” he said, carefully, and Frank snorted, but Gerard went on, “You shouldn’t have had to deal with that, Frank, and I’m sorry that you did - ” he winced, fuck, there he went apologizing anyway - “but that’s not me, alright? It’s not that I’m hooked on them, it’s just - I’m fuckin’ anxious all the time and it’s the only thing that helps me feel better and I’m trying to cope as best I can with the -”

Frank’s head whipped around so fast from where he was looking off at a far wall that Gerard thought he heard his neck crack. “Stop,” he demanded, his voice strained. “Stop right there, because that is fucking _classic_ addict talk, you stupid motherfucker. ‘Oh no, I can’t possibly be addicted to the only thing in the world that helps me feel good, how could you suggest such a thing?’” he mocked in a high voice, and Gerard flushed hot and humiliated all over again.

“You don’t know the first fucking thing about how I feel!” he shouted, feeling tears build in the corners of his eyes. “It’s hard for me to get up there and be that guy, okay? I’m not like you, it’s not second nature, it’s - it feels like I’m fucking _bleeding_ in front of everyone and it scares the shit out of me and you know, it does _not_ fucking help when you start pulling shit like shoving your tongue down my throat as a protest!”

“It’s not my fault you have stage fright - “ Frank started, but Gerard barreled over him.

“No, but it’s _your_ fault I had to start taking this shit in the first place!”

Frank reeled - actually, physically reeled backward like Gerard had punched him, and gaped at him in shock. It seemed to take him a second to find his tongue. “You…you’re blaming _me_ for this?” he managed at last, sounding odd, like he couldn’t get enough air. 

“You were gone all the time! I was worried about you every second of every day, and Otter was up my ass about you missing practices and being late to gigs, and then you went missing for _three fucking days_ while we were doing the album and I couldn’t deal with the fucking _stress_ anymore, it was killing me! And now you’re dragging me into the middle of your one man crusade, forcing me to all but come out to strangers who already don’t like me, so that what? You can feel good about showing off your moral superiority? _Fuck_ you! Yes, I’m fucking blaming you!”

Frank spun around in place and piled both hands on top of his head, breathing fast and shallow, and started to move toward the door. Gerard wondered for a flash if he was gonna leave, maybe go demand a different room key from Brian so he wouldn’t have to share with Gerard tonight, but no sooner did he have the thought than Frank was surging back to face him again with a wild eyed, desolate look on his face. “I could make you forget,” he said, and Gerard’s insides turned to ice. “If I had to. If I thought you’d be better off. I could just leave, and make you forget about me, and you’d never know I was gone. You’d never - never know I was ever fucking here in the first place.”

Gerard couldn’t breathe. His chest was too full, his heart was beating too fast, Christ, would Frank do that? Just - leave him? Did he _want_ to? Gerard’s hands curled into fists at the thought, a bolt of fury zinging through him. Fine. Fine, maybe he _would_ be fucking better off without Frank, maybe they _all_ would, and before he could think it over any longer or stop his mouth, he heard himself say, “Maybe it would better if you just fucking left, Frank.”

They stared at each other for a heartbeat across the room.

Frank plunged his hand into his front jeans pocket and yanked out his watch. “Fine,” he spat. He looked down to set it, fingers trembling over the dials, and when he lifted his head again, his face was splotchy and wet with tears. Gerard’s stomach dropped. “Bye,” Frank said. And then he was gone.

Gerard instantly panicked, rushing to the spot where Frank was standing, and scrunched up his nose when the smell of burning wires hit him hard. “Frank,” he called, which was stupid of him. He dropped to his knees and touched his fingers to the carpet like that would help, like if he could feel that Frank had been here it would bring him back. An exchange popped into his head - a while ago, in the van, cold and dark and fucked up - something Frank told him about something They did to you, when you messed up.

_They make it so you never existed._

_That won’t happen to you, right?_

_You wouldn’t have any idea if did._

Oh, God. Oh, _God._ Gerard clamped a hand over his mouth and burst into tears. How did he take it back? Could he call him? He scrambled for the phone on the nightstand and dialed Frank’s number as fast as he could with his vision blurry and his hands shaking so badly he could barely hold onto the handset. It took him a couple tries before he got it. He crammed his fingers into his mouth and sank to the floor beside the nightstand, pressing his forehead against the wood, silently pleading with the chirping tone, _pick up, pick up, pick up._ After a couple rings, Gerard realized there was another sound he was hearing - a faint buzz, in the room with him. Dread sprang cold into his veins. He turned his head and eyed Frank’s hoodie, lying in a heap on his bed. The front pocket glowed a weak blue. As the line went to voicemail, the buzzing stopped, and the glow dimmed, and Gerard let the phone slip out of his hand and clatter against the front drawer.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck._

Numb and wide-eyed, Gerard slowly got to his feet. There wasn’t anyone else he could talk to, not without giving Frank’s secret away, and what could anyone else do about it? Frank could be anywhere. Any_when. _Brian couldn’t fix this and Mikey would be too drunk to talk him through the panic attack coalescing in the hollow of his ribcage and it was all Gerard’s fault. Frank was _gone_ and it was _all his fault._

He clutched his head between both hands, suddenly struggling to breathe. His Xanax was still sitting on the bed where Frank had thrown it; Gerard stared at it for a second, and then snatched up the bottle, ripping the cap away and shoving two pills into his mouth before he could think too hard about it. They stuck in his throat. He ran to the bathroom and sucked down some tap water from his cupped hands to choke them down, and then slid gasping down to his hands and knees on the tiled floor. He stayed there until the drugs kicked in - he had no idea how long it took - and then he staggered back to the bedroom, wrung out.

Frank’s bed was closest. Gerard collapsed onto it face first, putting him in arm’s reach of Frank’s hoodie. He stared at it, fresh tears pooling in his eyes as he did, and after a short battle against himself finally gathered it into his arms and buried his face in it like some fucking teenager who’d been dumped by her boyfriend. The material was soft, and it smelled like Frank, and Gerard passed out bawling into the bunched-up cotton.


	16. Major

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well, Gerard just barfed in a fiddle leaf plant, so I think this is gonna go really well."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Hope you're well.
> 
> Thank you Priya and Momo, as ever, for your help, and huge thank you to Polycule Homestead for the endless encouragement and kind words. I do it all for y'all. <3
> 
> A couple of things, quickly: this chapter contains explicit drug use and sexual situations that take place under the influence of drugs, and if those things makes you uncomfortable, please feel free to skip over them!
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!

Keen Bean was empty, save the two of them, and eerily silent. It smelled like warm sugar and fresh coffee. Gerard inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, and as he did he noticed the light patter of rain coming down outside. When he turned to look out the windows, though, all he saw was black. Black like the windows in that Hopper  _ Automat _ painting. He couldn’t see his reflection, either.

“That’s pretty freaky,” he remarked to Frank, who made a sympathetic noise.

“I got used to it.” He pushed Gerard’s drink over the counter. The foam looked like a heart held between two cupped hands. “You won’t be here this time for long, though.”

Gerard picked up the mug. It was exactly the right temperature, and the first sip spread warmth all through his body. It didn’t taste like coffee or milk or even some kind of tea. It was sweet, and sort of herbal, with a complex finish that made him want to gulp down a gallon of it just to pinpoint the exact flavors. “What did you put in this?”

Frank finished wiping off the steel worktop and dropped his cloth into the red bucket with a gentle sploosh. He looked totally different than he had the first time they’d met properly a lifetime ago. His hair was long, curling around his jaw, and tucked behind both ears. A new, long scar stretched from the corner of his mouth to his ear. He wore a black graphic t-shirt with yellow striped sleeves and a distressed army vest, along with a medallion necklace, and an empty brown leather shoulder holster. He was also sunburned and covered in dirt. Frank propped his elbows up on the counter and rested his chin on top of his hands. His eyes were soft and a little crinkly at the corners, his smile fond, and Gerard found an answering one spreading on his lips before he could stop himself. “Can’t tell you everything, sweetheart. Otherwise there’s nothing to look forward to.”

Gerard blushed at the pet name. He tried to hide it behind the mug as he took another, smaller sip to try and figure out what he was tasting. “If I guess it, will you tell me?”

“Oh, come on, Gee. Preserve a little mystery.” Frank laid his forearms flat on the wooden counter and leaned over them, closer to Gerard. Gerard could smell gasoline on him now. “You’ll be back soon enough.”

“I will?” The rain outside picked up to a full downpour. Gerard set down the mug and shifted off of his stool to approach the front door. It didn’t open when he pulled on the handle, so he cupped his hands around his eyes and put his face to the glass. He still couldn’t see anything. “Jeez, it’s fuckin’ dark out.”

Frank, who must have come out from behind the counter, put his hands on both of Gerard’s shoulders to gently urge him back from the door. “Don’t worry about it. C’mere, come tell me about these drawings you did.”

Gerard let Frank lead him back to his spot on the counter, where a series of drawings were laid out like a storyboard. They weren’t his usual, cartoony style, although he knew somehow that they were his work; they were hyperrealistic, almost photographic in their detail, and they were, in a word, disturbing. A brass pocketwatch just like Frank’s, with a shattered face, blood seeping into the spiderweb cracks. Himself, throat slit, pale and chained at the wrists to some kind of…table? Maybe concrete? The wound across his throat was livid, but clean. Next was a close-up of Frank’s hands, gripping tight to black fabric, which sparked a pang of lust in his gut, though he wasn’t sure why, other than that it was Frank. The fourth and final panel was of a small, brass-handled dagger, brandished by a black-gloved hand, its blade gleaming with fresh blood.

Gerard stared at them.

“What can you tell me about these?” Frank asked him, on the other side of the counter again.

Equal parts fascinated and horrified, Gerard ran his fingertips over the one of himself. It wasn’t on paper. The material felt thick like canvas, but untextured, and it rippled in a strange way as he touched it. “I don’t remember doing these,” he said. He drew his hand away, and the image seemed to cling to his skin like syrup for a moment before it sprang back to the counter. “What the fuck?”

“It’s okay,” said Frank. Gerard glanced up at him. Frank was watching him, somber and somewhat pensive. He reached over the counter, to where Gerard had braced his hands against the edge of the wood, and covered Gerard’s fingers with his own. He had on leather motorcycle gloves, and his fingertips were rough. “They haven’t happened to you yet. I was just checking. The order of events gets a little - well, I guess screwed up isn’t exactly right, but they get weird toward the end, you know?”

Gerard blinked at Frank in confusion. “No. No, I don’t. What do you mean, they haven’t happened to me? You said they were drawings.”

“They are,” Frank agreed. He gave Gerard a sad smile, and curled his fingers around Gerard’s. “It’s almost time for you to go. I’m glad I got to see you again, I wasn’t sure I’d manage to find this place before you left. Did you get my message?”

“Um,” said Gerard. The rain echoed through the empty shop - it sounded like they were underneath a gigantic waterfall, thundering in his ears. He didn’t have any trouble hearing Frank, though. “Maybe? Where am I going?”

Frank pressed his lips to Gerard’s knuckles. “Back to where you belong, at least for now. Like I said, you’ll be here again in a little while.” He let go of Gerard’s hands then, and took a step back, toward the swinging door that led to the back of the shop. “Tell the other two I said hi, okay?”

“Sure,” Gerard said, to no one, because suddenly he was alone and the sound of the rain was so loud he couldn’t pay attention to anything else and he clamped his hands over his ears, his eyes screwed shut with pain.

He woke up in the dark, his cheeks stiff with salt, Frank’s hoodie balled up beneath his chin. He used it to scrub his face, and then shoved it aside, feeling more than a little pathetic and ashamed of himself. Then he registered the sound he was hearing - that thundering echo wasn’t rain, it was the door to their hotel room - someone was banging on it. Gerard squinted at the alarm clock on the nightstand - who the fuck was trying to wake him up at three in the morning? He flipped on the lamp, rolled off the bed and stumbled to the door, yanking it open just a crack.

He found Frank.

A blood-stained and much,  _ much _ thinner Frank, in a ragged t-shirt that was too big for him and jeans that were loose and just barely stayed up. His hair was buzzed, he had a latticework of bruises up both arms, and he was shivering even though it must have been close to eighty degrees and there was no air conditioning in the hotel. They looked at each other for a second across the threshold.

“You came back,” said Gerard, when he could speak again.

Frank just nodded. He looked down at the floor and tucked his hands under his arms. Gerard opened the door all the way and stepped aside to let Frank in. He walked stiffly into the bedroom without saying a word, and stopped at the end of the far bed. Gerard shut the door and padded in behind him, unsure what to do next. Clearly Frank had been through the wringer since he’d left - some of the blood on his face still looked fresh - but his silence coupled with the fact that they hadn’t actually  _ resolved _ anything earlier made Gerard reluctant to do much more than hang back in the short hallway by the door and wait for Frank to speak. But he didn’t. He stood staring blankly at one of the tepid hotel paintings, unmoving. As the seconds ticked by in ever deepening silence, Gerard grew more and more restless and uncomfortable until finally he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Frank,” he said, and crossed the space between them in two long strides. “Where did you go?”

It was as though Gerard had broken a spell. Frank jumped with a startled noise and turned his head to look at Gerard, like he was just now noticing Gerard was even there. His eyes abruptly filled with tears; he shook his head as they spilled down over his cheeks. Gerard, alarmed, reached out to put a hand on Frank’s shoulder, but Frank flinched so violently that he instantly dropped it again.

“Jesus, Frankie,” he breathed in horror, as Frank covered his face with his hands and made a wretched, awful sound that wrenched at Gerard and made him want to throw up. “What  _ happened _ to you?”

Frank slumped to his knees, sobbing. Gerard followed. Feeling helpless, he curled his hands into fists atop his thighs and just watched Frank unravel, his stomach in knots. It went on for what felt like an hour. All the while, Gerard never moved and never spoke. He was terrified that if he did, he’d set Frank off worse. Eventually, Frank’s hysteria tapered off into congested soft gasps, muted by his palms, and Gerard at last shuffled forward and gently placed his hands on both of Frank’s upper arms, mindful of the bruises splotched livid over his skin. He cleared his throat.

“Hey,” he said, low enough he wouldn’t startle Frank. “I’m not gonna make you talk about it. You don’t have to say anything at all, if you - if you can’t. But I want to help you. What can I do?”

Frank dragged in a wet, hiccuping breath before he finally moved his hands away from his face, pushing them over his cheeks to wipe the tears away. He let the breath out in a long whoosh, his chin against his chest. When he looked back up at Gerard, his eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and he looked exhausted. He shook his head.

“You should go back to sleep,” Frank said, his voice rough and raw but otherwise carefully toneless. “I’m fine. Need a shower.”

Gerard started to protest that Frank was  _ obviously _ not fine, but Frank stood up as Gerard struggled to find the words, and he trudged to the bathroom without any further comment. The click of the door shutting behind him sounded loud in the sudden silence. Gerard could only sit on the carpet, dazed, as the sound of the shower turning on came through the wall.

The next morning, Frank said nothing about what had transpired the night before, and made up a story for the others about why he’d disappeared from the club before any of them got there. Only Gerard seemed to notice the change in Frank - the way his smile didn’t quite touch his eyes, the long sleeves even though it was almost eighty degrees and humid as a swamp, how he was always a million miles from the conversation until someone said his name or asked him a question, whereupon he would startle just a little before jumping back into whatever they were talking about. 

For the entire rest of the summer tour, Frank stuck to stage right and, except for his usual frantic heart-on-his-sleeve style of playing, dialed down his stage antics to almost nothing. No destruction, no makeouts, no setting fires. He stopped reacting to hecklers and he didn’t antagonize anyone, which made Brian happy. It made Gerard feel like he was going fucking insane. They never talked about that night in Paris again, and they never apologized to each other. Despite pretending everything was normal, the huge elephant in the room forced a distance between them that was slowly crushing Gerard. He didn’t know how to talk to Frank anymore, or where they stood, if they were okay or if Frank hated him now or  _ what _ . On the flight home, he and Frank had seats next to each other. Frank stuck his headphones in as soon as they were allowed, closed his eyes, and either fell asleep or pretended to; faced with eight hours of miserable, anxious silence, Gerard instead downed two Xanax and only woke up when Mikey dragged him off the plane after they landed. Frank was already long gone.

* * *

**EXCERPT FROM WSOU RADIO INTERVIEW, AUGUST 18TH, 2003**

**LD:** Good morning, everybody! I’m Lindy Davies, you are listening to WSOU Pirate Radio live from Seton Hall, the loudest rock available in all South Orange. To all our student listeners, welcome back to your very first day of fall semester. It is 8:01 am, which means - 

**FI:** You’re already late to your 8 AM, sucker! Get up!

[laughter]

**LD:** That voice you just heard belongs to one Frank Iero, and I’ll introduce him properly as soon as he lets me finish the intro segment.

**FI:** Sorry, sorry, I’m just over-caffeinated.

**LD:** It is 8:02 am now, which means it’s time for Local on the Eights, where I interrogate your favorite Jersey bands for an hour and play their songs whenever they start crying too hard to talk.

**GW:** [laughing] Oh God.

**FI:** What the hell kinda radio show is this?

**LD:** Seton Hall, we asked you which local group you wanted us to victimize the most to kick off your school year, and with an overwhelming  _ fifteen hundred  _ votes - 

**MW:** Holy [bleep]!

**GW:** That’s, like, half the school.

**LD:** Just about. We heard you loud and clear, folks - from just up the street, we have My Chemical Romance live in the studio!

[scattered applause]

**LD:** These guys just came back from Europe, so you know they’re a hot commodity. Their first album,  _ I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love _ has been out for a whole year now, and if you don’t already know all the words, what are you even doing with your life? They are playing this Friday with Midtown and Archangel Empty at the Expressway in Hoboken, so if you didn’t have weekend plans, you do now.

**RT:** Bring your friends!

**FI:** Bring your mom!

**GW:** Their  _ mom? _

**FI:** Yeah, you know. It’s been awhile.

**RT:** Gross, Frankie.

**FI:** I just wanna catch up! Make sure they’re taken care of, that’s all.

**RT:** Oh my  _ God,  _ stop talking, you leave these kids’ mothers alone - 

**FI:** Hey, they’re the ones calling  _ me. _ I’m just providing the service.

**LD:** In the interest of protecting your moms, probably  _ don’t _ bring them to the Expressway show, but definitely bring your friends! You guys wanna tell them who you are now? Just go around the circle.

**GW:** Hi, I’m Gerard Way, I sing.

**MW:** I’m Mikey Way, I play bass.

**FI:** I’m Frank Iero, I play guitar and service mothers all over the tri-state area.

[various groaning and laughter]

**RT:** [through laughter] Uh, I’m Ray Toro, I also play guitar, and I promise I haven’t touched your mom. I’m sure she’s a very nice woman.

**FI:** _Yeah_, she is.

**RT:** Please never do that with your eyebrows again.

**LD:** Your drummer sleep in today?

**GW:** Uh, he’s at home right now actually, he lives in Chicago. We just got back from touring, like, a week ago, and we were gone for awhile, so uh. He wanted to, you know, see his family and stuff.

**FI:** What a square.

**LD:** And how was Europe? I heard you guys got into some pretty wild stuff out there.

**RT:** Oh man, our manager’s still recovering from all the [bleep] we put him through.

**MW:** Sorry, Brian.

**RT:** Yeah, sorry Brian.

**MW:** Even though it was all Gerard and Frank’s fault, me and Ray are sorry.

**GW/FI:** [in unison] Hey!

[laughter]

**GW:** Well, I guess that’s fair. 

**FI:** I broke a lot of [bleep].

**RT:** You tried to burn down the venue in London.

**FI:** I did not! It was one measly little set list, God - 

**LD:** That’s pretty Jersey of you, though, to travel to a foreign country and immediately commit a crime.

**FI:** Oh, [bleep], you’re right. Dude, I’m totally gonna tell that story like I’m wanted in England for arson from now on. That’s way cooler.

**RT:** Aw, [bleep]. You see what you did? Now he’s gonna start setting [bleep] on fire for real.

**LD:** Oh no, what have I done?

**FI:** Expressway, I’m coming for you! And your moms!

[laughter]

**GW:** We can’t take you  _ anywhere. _

**RT:** Don’t set anything on fire, kids. 

**LD:** Not that fire isn’t cool or anything, but I’m told that there was also kissing involved? Like, kissing each  _ other? _ Does anyone have a happy announcement to make?

**MW: ** Oh God, it’s too early for this.

**GW: ** Uh. Not like - I mean, yeah, Frankie and I kissed on stage, but not ‘cause we’re, you know, together.

**LD: ** Just bros being bros, no homo?

[laughter]

**GW: ** Well, it-it was in response to some [bleep] people who were hurling slurs at us ‘cause we were wearing makeup, and like, it really pissed us off, ‘cause Jesus, makeup isn’t gay, wearing makeup doesn’t make you a [bleep], how [bleep]ing stupid is that? People have all these hang-ups about [bleep] when it comes to gender and sexuality and what you can and can’t do as a dude, like, it’s so [bleep]ing weird. People wanna police other people’s gender expression so bad, it’s crazy. Like, makeup’s just makeup. You know? It’s not gay, it’s not feminine, it’s just [bleep]ing pigment. Wearing makeup shouldn’t have to be a, a [bleep]ing  _ statement _ . It shouldn’t be, like, subversive. 

**LD:** I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know if I drank enough coffee yet to follow all that.

**FI:** Basically, I kissed Gerard on stage to piss off the homophobes who come to our shows for some reason. Cause pissing off homophobes is hilarious.

**GW:** Yeah.

**FI: ** And, like, hopefully those people don’t [bleep]ing come back. Just for the record, homophobes are not welcome at our shows. Don’t come if you’re a [bleep]bag human being. Or I’ll make you watch me stick my tongue down a dude’s throat.

**MW:** Could it be someone other than my brother just once?

**FI: ** Oh, are you volunteering? You want in on this action, Mikeyway?

**RT:** Wow, then you could say you swing both Ways.

**FI: ** Well, I do that regardless of whether or not I get to tongue Mikey.

**MW: ** I really would prefer if you didn’t.

**FI: ** But you literally just said, “Frank, when are you gonna kiss  _ me _ instead of my brother for a change?” I literally just heard you say that out loud into the mic. You sounded all, like, needy and [bleep]. 

**MW:** I hate you so much.

**FI:** That’s hot. Can you say that, like, during?

**RT:** You’re making him blush! [through laughter] Mikey, dude, you’re the same color as the paint in here, are you okay?

[muffled thumping noise, laughter]

**GW:** Oh no, you activated Mikey’s turtle instinct.

**RT:** I’m sorry! Aw, [bleep], now I feel bad. C’mon, Mikey, come out of your hoodie, it’s okay. Frank won’t hit on you anymore.

**FI:** I won’t?

**MW: ** [loudly, muffled] You guys are the  _ worst. _ I hate all of you and I can’t believe I have to be in a band with you [bleep]holes.

**LD:** And on that note, here’s a song the listeners have been demanding from the very beginning, this is “Skylines and Turnstiles”. Stick around, we’ve got plenty more to talk about with My Chemical Romance here on Pirate Radio, including the  _ very _ interesting job Gerard was doing right before he quit and started a band instead. Stay tuned!

* * *

“Wait, wait, wait, this is - this is the women’s restroom, I’m not - “

“Chill out, it’s a single occupancy, it’s fine!”

She had approached Gerard at the bar after their set - a cute bleach blonde with streaks of fuchsia in a Murder By Death t-shirt and a very mini denim miniskirt, and while Gerard wasn’t looking for a hookup, it had been a while since he’d played the game. It was fun, he was drunk, she knew enough about Star Wars to argue with him a little about it, and when they’d gone out together for a cigarette she’d proved to be a great kisser. Her eyes, a complex periwinkle blue that made Gerard’s fingers itch for pigment, sparkled as she invited him to come with her if he “ _ really  _ wanted to party,” and now here they were, crowded into a venue bathroom no bigger than an airplane’s, and she produced a compact and a baggie of white powder from her skirt pocket.

“Oh, wow,” said Gerard, as she popped open her compact.

“It’s just coke,” she said, like she was talking about the weather or something, and grinned at him. She had a little gap between her two front teeth. “It’s good shit, though.”

Gerard had only ever tried cocaine once, in college, and it was fine, but it was fucking expensive and his only reliable source was his asshole ex-boyfriend Chris from his last year at SVA. He hadn’t had it since. He’d taken two Xanax since noon, though, and he was pretty wasted after several shots with his new friend, and maybe this wasn’t, like, a  _ great _ idea. But she handed him a cocktail straw she fished out of her bra and cut up four lines, and it would be impolite to refuse after he’d come all the way to this point, so. What the hell.

The first line didn’t feel like much. It just made his nose and the roof of his mouth go numb. The second line, however, was fucking  _ magic. _ Gerard shivered as he straightened up from the sink and rubbed at his nose with a small laugh. 

“Fuck, that’s - holy shit,” he breathed, and gave his head a hard shake. He didn’t remember it being nearly this good the last time. He felt like he did when he came offstage, only even better, because he wasn’t tired. The whole world seemed sharper all of a sudden, brighter, the colors more saturated. Gerard wanted to play another set, or maybe run from here to the top of the Empire State Building, or whatever. All of it. Everything. He gave the girl a huge grin as she packed her things away again. “Do you wanna, like, get out of here? I really wanna go  _ dancing _ or some shit. And I don’t fuckin’ dance, I am an awful dancer, like, I’m pretty sure I’ve inspired secondhand embarrassment at every club I’ve ever been to, but I really just wanna - I don’t even know, you know? Let’s get out of here.”

The girl grabbed his hand. “God, I thought you’d never ask.”

The next hour or so happened in fits and starts, a patched-together montage of fragmented events: they were making out against the wall outside and the smell of her jasmine perfume was heady even though his nose was still numb; in the back of a cab, running his hands up under her skirt as she all but straddled him; her fingers gripping tight in his hair, her moans loud in his ears and her hips surging up to meet his mouth; her nails dragging down his back as he moved inside her, her thighs tightening around his middle, how she tensed like a taut string and cried out as she came; his own orgasm, that seemed to knock him back into sobriety like plunging face-first into an ice bath. Catching his breath on her sheets, Gerard felt…strange, all of a sudden, not like he usually did right after sex. He felt weirdly bereft and kind of  _ sad,  _ which totally freaked him out, who the fuck got depressed after a hookup? The girl didn’t seem to care much when Gerard made his excuses and got dressed. As he stumbled out of her apartment building in a part of Hoboken he never went to because just breathing the air was expensive, Gerard realized two things at once: one, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with another person, and two, he didn’t know the girl’s name.

He didn’t have any cash for a cab and it was only half an hour’s walk or so from where he was back to where he’d left his car at the venue. The parking lot was deserted when he made it back, and by the time he got home and into his own bed, the weird hollow feeling had worsened to where he could have started crying if he hadn’t been so fucking  _ exhausted. _

Mikey came down and dragged him out from under his comforter the next morning just after eleven, talking a mile a minute about someone who flew in from L.A. to talk to them and that Brian wanted them all to meet at his office at noon. Gerard never wanted to punch him so badly in his entire life. He didn’t even have the energy to feel bad about wanting to punch Mikey at all. This was his most complete, total, godawful hangover to date, he was certain. His whole body felt like a giant bruise and leaving his pillow behind made him want to weep. It was bad enough that Mikey didn’t even volunteer to drive - he just took Gerard’s keys out of his jacket and bundled Gerard into his own passenger seat without comment. Gerard kept his eyes firmly closed the entire trip.

“The sun is my enemy,” he declared to Mikey outside Brian’s office building in Brooklyn, after he dug into his pockets for his sunglasses and didn’t find them. Mikey rolled his eyes at him - probably, Gerard still had his eyes closed and didn’t actually see him do it, but he felt a palpable sense of disdain - and pushed him in the direction of the door.

“You’ve had hangovers before, Gee, take some Advil and deal with it.” 

In the elevator, Gerard got hit with a bolt of nausea so hard he broke out in goosebumps, and as soon as the doors opened on Brian’s floor he sprinted for the bathroom and swore in despair when the handle didn’t move and he caught sight of the handwritten sign taped just under the restroom placard: TENANT KEY REQUIRED. He staggered over to the window and threw up into the base of a large potted plant there instead.

“Jesus Christ, Gerard,” said Mikey, alarmed. Gerard couldn’t even say something snarky in response, because he puked again before he could get the words out. After a few more dry heaves, Gerard flopped back onto the shitty industrial carpet and covered his eyes with both hands.

“Don’t make me get up,” he whined. “Let me die here, it’s more humane.”

Mikey crouched down beside Gerard’s head, and Gerard risked peeking through his fingers just enough to catch a glimpse of Mikey’s disapproving face. “You’re not gonna die, come on, Brian’s waiting.” A pause, and then Mikey said in a different tone, “Hey, are you here?”

“Duh, you brought me here,” said Gerard, but Mikey just pushed at his shoulder impatiently and kept talking.

“Yeah, we’re upstairs… Well, Gerard just barfed in a fiddle leaf plant, so I think this is gonna go really well… I think he’s fine. He drove himself home last night… Dude, I don’t know, he smelled like a Victoria’s Secret until a minute ago and I’m not, like, in the habit of begging my brother for details about his sex life.”

Gerard pressed the heels of his palms so hard against his eyes he saw stars. “ _ Fuck _ you,” he said to Mikey, with feeling, who patted his forehead in response.

“See you in a second,” he said to the person on the phone, and hung up. “Frank wants you to know he thinks you’re a dumbass, but he’ll help peel you off the floor.”

Gerard broke into a cold sweat as soon as Mikey said Frank’s name that had nothing to do with his hangover. Oh, God. Not Frank. He  _ really _ didn’t want to have to see Frank right now. Especially not if he still smelled like his one night stand, God, he would rather smell like puke than  _ that  _ in front of Frank _ . _ He made a noise at Mikey that he hoped conveyed this thought and curled up on his side, dropping his head on Mikey’s knee. The elevator dinged.

“Oh, shit. Casanova’s not looking so good,” Frank’s voice snickered. Mortified, Gerard coiled up even tighter. “Aww, don’t be shy. Who was it, Pink Hair Girl? She was totally hot, dude, you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Yep, hooray, Gerard got laid, high fives and ass slaps all around. Help me get him up, please, Brian’s gonna be pissed if he sees him like this.” Mikey shifted, and Gerard’s head unceremoniously hit the floor. Gerard moaned as a whole new universe of headache exploded behind his eyeballs. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Did you really puke in the planter?” Frank asked, and the floor vibrated a little under Gerard as Frank stepped past him toward the windows. “Ah. You really did. Man, that plant’s probably super dead now.”

“That’s helpful, Frank, thank you,” Mikey grumbled, and got to his feet. “Gerard, come on. Brian’ll have painkillers and water and stuff, but you have to get up.”

“Nnnnnnnnnnnn,” said Gerard. Flat on his back again, he crossed his arms over his face.

Frank laughed under his breath. “Oh, you’re like,  _ hungover  _ hungover. You poor thing.”

“So glad you’re enjoying this,” Mikey finally snapped. “Either help me or go get Ray, he’s already here.”

“Jeez, alright. Pull the stick out of your ass, Mikeyway, you already said he was fine.” Two pairs of hands wormed under Gerard’s arms and hauled him upright, before they grabbed his hands and pulled him up to his feet. Gerard swayed, the head rush from getting dragged up too fast knocking him off-balance; someone wrapped their arm around his shoulders. Frank, judging by how close his voice was when he said, “Easy there, tiger. You just gotta get through this meeting, and then you can get right back to banging groupies.”

Mikey muttered something biting about green not being Frank’s color on Gerard’s other side, while Gerard was concentrating mostly on staying upright. The groupies thing struck a nerve, though. Gerard opened his eyes long enough to briefly glare at Frank before closing them again. “Wasn’t a  _ groupie _ ,” he insisted, shortly. “Fuck you very much. We don’t  _ have _ groupies and even if we did I wouldn’t sleep with them. Asshole.”

Frank snorted. “Oh,  _ so _ sorry. Forgot about your gleaming sense of chivalry, Sir Gerard. In that case, pass along my apologies to your new bride,” he shot back, too venomous to be teasing. He dropped his arm and stepped away. “Can’t wait to meet her. What was her name again?”

That one stung. Gerard was hurt, but he didn’t have the energy to put up a fight, so instead he just gave Frank the finger and trudged toward Brian’s office with one hand shielding his eyes from the overhead glare of the fluorescent lights. Behind him, Frank and Mikey lit into each other at a furious whisper; Gerard only caught every third word or so until Mikey finally lost patience and said, “Christ, whatever, wallow in your second high school all you want, but don’t make me  _ watch _ , for fuck’s sake - “

“Can we get this over with, please?” Gerard called to both of them, his fingers wrapped around the door handle, and then he threw it open and griped as he stepped through, “Brian, you heartless bitch, you better have a stellar fucking reason for dragging me all the way here. Where do you keep your painkillers? And I swear to God, if you so much as think the words ‘suck it up’ in my direction, you’re fired.”

“…So, uh. Craig, this is Gerard, our frontman,” said Brian, forcefully polite, and Gerard dropped his hand away from his eyes so fast it broke the sound barrier. Brian had pulled out his big conference table that took up half the room and was sat at one end of it, with Ray to his left and a man Gerard had never seen before to his right. New guy was wearing a pastel Abercrombie and Fitch polo and the brightest, whitest grin Gerard had ever seen on a live human being, while Brian had on his I-would-already-be-strangling-you-with-my-bare-hands-were-it-not-for-the-multiple-witnesses face. Gerard couldn’t bear to look at either of them, so he looked at Ray, who grimaced at him in secondhand embarrassment. “Gerard, this is Craig Aaronson, he’s from Reprise Records.”

The walking toothpaste advertisement shot to his feet and held out an eager hand to Gerard. “Hi! It’s so nice to finally meet you!  _ Love _ your work,” he gushed, beaming.

Oh, Jesus. This was not happening. This could not be real. He’d just puked in a potted plant and now he had to talk to a rep from fucking  _ Reprise _ ? Gerard shrieked at the universe in his head, and outwardly, managed to return the handshake with a weak smile before sinking into the chair beside Ray in numb horror. 

He was never gonna do coke ever again.

* * *

Despite the mortifying first meeting, wherein Gerard chain-smoked half a pack of cigarettes, rambled at length about all the reasons why he thought My Chemical Romance was the most important thing he’d ever do, drew a portrait of Craig on a spare piece of copy paper after telling Craig he was an artist, and totally forgot to let any of his bandmates talk until Craig started asking them direct questions, they got signed.

They got signed. They got signed. They got  _ signed. _

There were more steps, of course. Brian and someone from the legal department at Warner had to get them released from their contract with Eyeball, which wasn’t difficult so much as mentally taxing, and Gerard felt guilty about it even though Alex assured them he’d known it was bound to happen sooner or later. There were more meetings - conference calls at Brian’s office mostly - and Craig came to record a couple of their shows. They didn’t hear anything for an agonizing weekend, and then Craig called to ask how soon they all could be on a plane to California. 

Four days before Mikey’s birthday, Gerard found himself sitting in a nondescript boardroom in Los Angeles that overlooked the freeway, poring over a ten page double-sided document with all four of his bandmates while Brian and the woman from the legal department (Sarah? Stacey? Gerard couldn’t remember and felt terrible about it) explained in painstaking detail exactly what they were reading. Gerard retained almost nothing, except for the part where the label laid out exactly how much money they were gonna put down for the second album, which was such a cartoonish number that he grabbed Mikey’s knee as soon as he saw it and gestured to it in disbelief. Mikey rolled his eyes at him.

_ Duh, _ he scribbled onto a memo pad sitting on the conference table.  _ That’s why you sign to a major label in the first place. _

_ BUT HOLY SHIT _ , Gerard wrote back, and widened his eyes as he pushed the pad over with a little frantic gesture, and then added,  _ What do we even SPEND that kind of money on? _

_ Hookers and blow _ , Mikey replied. Gerard kicked at him under the table.

At the end of the meeting, they all signed their names on the last page, and that was it. My Chemical Romance was a major label band. Craig cheered and popped the cork on a champagne bottle, Brian actually cracked a smile when Gerard threw himself at him for a hug, and someone took a picture when the rest of the band piled on top of them. Gerard wasn’t sure, but when they all finally let Brian up for air, he thought he saw a misty-eyed Brian subtly wiping at his face with the back of his hand. 

The label threw them a signing party that night at a restaurant in West Hollywood. Gerard drank a whole bottle of red wine that was so good he was afraid to know how much it cost. He and Frank sat at opposite ends of the table, and they hardly said two words to each other, but Gerard still noticed when Frank got up and didn’t come back after twenty minutes. Gerard drained his glass and pulled out his cigarettes before making his way to the surprisingly uncrowded smoking patio. They might still be avoiding each other, but if Frank came back different, he’d need someone to intercept him. Gerard hopped up onto the short brick wall backing Sunset and lit up, blowing smoke into the warm twilight air and watching crowds mill past. He was lighting his second cigarette when Frank finally materialized onto the wall beside him.

“Fucker,” he said, ruefully, when Frank stole the cigarette out of his mouth.

Frank just shrugged at him and took a drag. He’d managed to stay in the same clothes, but his hair was black instead of brown, and pushed back over his head in a similar slicked style to the one he’d worn to Mikey’s birthday way back when. “Anyone notice?”

Gerard shook his head. “If they did, they didn’t say anything.” He grabbed another smoke. “Where’d you go?”

“New York.” Frank cracked his knuckles. “Pumpkins concert, ‘97. Some dumbass greened out, I had to drag him off to the bathroom before he fainted in the pit.”

That sounded familiar. Familiar enough that Gerard cocked his head and asked, “What did this dumbass look like?”

Frank glanced at him, briefly; they made a split second of eye contact before Frank looked back out over Sunset. “Real skinny fucker. Glasses perched on the very end of his nose like a fucking Regency portrait or some shit. Maybe you’d know him.”

Gerard snorted, flicking ash onto the sidewalk. “Sounds like a guy I might’ve met, yeah.” He knew exactly what concert Frank was talking about; Mikey had taken his first edible before he’d gone, and come back catatonic. How funny that it was Frank who helped him out. 

They lapsed into silence. Frank crushed out his cigarette against the brick after a minute or two, and made to jump down and go back inside. Gerard felt a sudden twinge of disappointment. He started to reach for Frank as he moved. “Frank, wait - “

Frank hit the pavers at the same time as the patio door hauled open and Mikey burst through it, white-faced, his phone clutched in one hand. “Gerard. Here, you gotta talk to Mom, it’s - it’s bad,” he said, voice strained, and crossed the patio to shove the phone into Gerard’s hand. Gerard’s heart leapt into his throat.

“Mom?” he said, and was met with the gut-wrenching sound of his mother sobbing down the line. “Mom, it’s me, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

It took her another couple seconds to gather herself long enough to choke out,  _ “Gerard, honey, it’s Grandma. She - she went for a walk, and her heart gave out, and she didn’t make it, baby.” _

Gerard gripped the phone with both hands, and Frank looked at him questioningly, and Gerard’s own voice sounded far away in his ears as he said, “What do you mean, she didn’t make it?”

_ “Grandma’s gone, Gerard. She passed away at the hospital.” _


	17. Mort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just hold still,” Frank begged him, sounding out of breath. “I know it hurts. I know, and I’m so sorry, but you have to just feel it and get it over with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi folks! I am SO sorry it took forever and a day to get this chapter done. It was a struggle, but I won! As always, a huge thank you hug for Priya, Momo, Jenny, Nadine, and all P.H. for continually being stoked for me when I had a hard time being stoked for myself. You all are the BEST. I love you guys.
> 
> Happy late birthday Kady! I thought I'd have this done before then but I was wrooong but I hope it's good anyway!
> 
> [Find me on Tumblr](https://justlookatthewheat.tumblr.com) if you feel like getting in touch!

Catholics should have been banned from holding funerals in the summer. Gerard wanted a word with the Pope. The inside of the church was stifling despite the dark and the stone floor - guess there weren’t sufficient alms for air conditioning, bummer - the air so thick with the smell of incense it was hard to take a full breath. One billion lit candles crowded the altar and all the aisles, clustered at the end of every row; candles as far as the eye could fucking see that only compounded the misery. And it  _ was _ miserable. Crammed onto the end of the first pew next to Mikey and poaching in his awful monkey suit, Gerard was hard-pressed to come up with an occasion when he’d had a worse time. He could barely keep his head up, the atmosphere was so oppressive.

He was also really, thoroughly stoned after the three Xanax he’d scoffed that morning with his Irish coffee. So there was that. Mostly, though, he was just fucking depressed.

“We offer Thee, O Lord, sacrifice and prayers of praise…do Thou accept her for the soul whom we this day commemorate…grant her, O Lord, to pass from death to the life which Thou once didst promise to Abraham and his seed,” the priest droned. Gerard glared at him with as much dislike as he could muster. He’d never met this dude before in his life, but he already hated him and his shitty, unoriginal Mass. Father Grim here had to have at least a decade over Elena. What the fuck was up with that? Did God let priests live longer just because they were priests? This fucker looked like he might collapse under the weight of his own vestments if a strong enough breeze blew through, but  _ he _ got to live another day to deliver this excruciating liturgy while Elena got to rot in an ornate box? That seemed like favoritism to Gerard. What bullshit. This was totally going on the grievance agenda for his papal one-on-one.

Oh, everyone was standing up now, fuck. Gerard hauled to his feet a few seconds late and had to grab onto Mikey’s arm when gravity tried to dump him sideways. Mikey shot him a withering look out of the corner of his eye. “Kyrie eleison,” they intoned with the rest of the room. “Christe eleison.”

Gerard flopped back down onto the pew before anyone else. Another reason why Catholic funerals - Catholic  _ anything _ \- were torture. There was too much exercise involved. Why couldn’t they just sit the whole time? Jesus did not give a shit about the holy calisthenics, Gerard was certain. There was no separate VIP section of Heaven for people whose loved ones sweated it out sufficiently in their honor.

On Mikey’s other side, their mom leaned forward and glowered at him.  “Sit up straight,” she hissed. She had on too much makeup. Gerard could see her foundation creasing under her eyes and around her mouth, where her lipstick had gone fuzzy. He complied, but rolled his eyes the instant she wasn’t watching him anymore. Jesus. He wasn’t a  _ kid. _

If he tried to pay any more attention to this Mass, he would for sure pass out from boredom and then there’d be two dead bodies at this funeral after his mother killed him. So instead he lolled his head on his shoulders and gazed up at a stained glass window to his right. It depicted some saint getting martyred via stake burning. Poor bastard. He didn’t seem too upset about it, though; he looked sort of zonked and glassy-eyed, actually. Gerard snorted to himself. Stained glass. Glassy-eyed. Holy shit.

Mikey elbowed him in the ribs, hard, and Gerard glanced over and had to fight  _ super _ hard against another laugh when he realized that since Mikey was wearing glasses, he was  _ also _ glassy-eyed, but he couldn’t explain the joke to Mikey and now Mikey was glaring at him in an identical way to their mom and that was also hilarious and Gerard ended up burying his face in both hands so he wouldn’t burst out giggling. Mikey sighed through his nose.

“You need to get your shit together,” he whispered in Gerard’s ear. Gerard just shrugged at him. Why bother? Everything was fucked. C’est la vie - or, well, c’est la mort. He dragged his hands down his cheeks and then tucked them under his arms with a suppressed yawn. How would glassy-eyed Saint Mikey get martyred, he wondered? Maybe a firing squad. Modern martyrdom. An image popped into his head of a tight close-up on Mikey’s face, expression grim yet defiant, glasses reflecting the firing squad about to gun him down but in a stained glass style. Oh shit, that was fucking  _ sick, _ he needed a pen stat. But they were standing again. God damn, how did he keep missing the cues?

“Aw, fuck,” Gerard accidentally let slip, when he realized that they weren’t standing, but kneeling. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mother’s head whip around to look at him as he dropped to his knees on the hassock, and he winced. Oops. She was so gonna kill him. When they returned to sitting, she reached her arm around Mikey and gripped onto Gerard’s shoulder so hard he imagined finger-shaped bruises blossoming on his skin beneath her hand. To an outsider, it probably just looked like a mother comforting her boys. Gerard - and probably Mikey too, from how tense her arm was - knew it meant Gerard was in deep shit. For the rest of the interminable service, he stared straight ahead at an enormous cross-shaped lily arrangement and didn’t move or think until prompted.

His mom kept her grip on his shoulder the entire time they stood in the receiving line, her nails digging into the seam on his suit jacket while Gerard shook hands with a legion of identical elderly couples and endured so many cheek pinches he thought he must have popped a blood vessel. She waited until they were in the car on the way to the cemetery to rip into him.

“I cannot  _ believe _ you would behave so disgracefully at your grandmother’s funeral, Gerard Arthur Way! She loved you more than anything in the world, and  _ this _ is how you pay your respects? You should be ashamed. She would be ashamed of you. You couldn’t even be bothered to get up for the viewing - “

Gerard closed his eyes and sunk down in the backseat as the tirade continued. Whatever, what _ ever _ , it didn’t fucking matter, he wanted to shout back at her. Nothing did. Elena wouldn’t be ashamed of him, because she was fucking dead. He said nothing, though, and let his mother harangue him with his arms folded and his head tipped against the window.

The burial, though shorter than the Mass, was equally agonizing. Gerard felt like a crayon melting in the sun. No amount of fanning himself with the stupid program kept him from wanting to collapse of heatstroke. (What the fuck was the program for, anyway? What was hard to follow about burying a box in the dirt?) He did manage to block out the actual burial part by retelling himself the entire plot of Morrison’s  _ Doom Patrol _ run. He got all the way up to the Brief Candles arc before Mikey suddenly shoved at him and said his name.

“What?” Gerard replied, annoyed.

Mikey’s eyebrows shot up, and he gave Gerard a wide-eyed  _ are you shitting me _ stare. “Do you,” he said through his teeth, “want to say a few words about Grandma?”

Oh, fuck.

Gerard’s stomach lurched. He opened his mouth, and shut it again. Sweat dripped from the nape of his neck down through the gap between his collar and his skin and crept down his spine. He glanced around the gravesite at all the people gathered there, including his mother, who looked even more incensed. Static buzzed in Gerard’s head, loud and angry. He stared down at the grass as clammy desperation clawed into his throat. He couldn’t think of anything to say. The harder he tried, the louder the static. Eventually survival instinct kicked in and he eked out something about how he loved her and he would miss her a lot (or something, whatever it was it sucked) while his cheeks burned. What the fuck was wrong with him?

After that pathetic showing, even Mikey didn’t want anything to do with him. The car ride back from the cemetery was silent, save for a frosty announcement from his mom that they would be dropping Gerard off at home before she and Mikey went to some other get-together hosted by Elena’s church group, which was fine by Gerard. He felt like shit. His head still buzzed with angry chatter, a kind of roiling ink-black incoherence, and he couldn’t feel his fingertips, and he just wanted to go to bed. Dragging himself out of the backseat once they got to the house was like wading through drying concrete. It was all he could do not to collapse right there in the driveway. He swayed in place for a second with his eyes closed as his mom’s car sped off behind him. Fuck today. Fuck funerals. And especially fuck Catholicism.

He dug his keys out of his damp suit pocket on his way around the side of the house to the back porch. As he walked, the smell of a fresh cigarette wafted up to greet him; Gerard tensed, breaking stride, fingers clenched around his keyring. Was someone here? He cautiously rounded the corner, expecting a busted-down door and broken glass all over the porch. Instead, he found Frank - sitting on the stoop with one knee pulled up to his chest, his sneaker braced against the edge of the step, cigarette dangling from his fingertips. His eyes were fixed on the middle distance somewhere, but he glanced over when Gerard fumbled his keys, and they widened for a moment before he crushed the cherry out and scrambled to his feet, the porch groaning beneath him.

They stood, and stared at each other, and said nothing. All Gerard could hear was buzzing insects and the distant whoosh of traffic. He hadn’t seen or heard from Frank since that night in L.A.; he and Mikey had left the restaurant right after their mom called to grab their stuff from the hotel and jump on the next redeye back to Newark. In all the funeral prep and general upheaval Gerard had all but forgotten he and Frank still hadn’t made up.  _ That _ was gonna require way more fortitude than Gerard had left in him today, though. The thought alone made him want to lie down.

Frank shifted, fingers curling and uncurling. He opened his mouth, changed his mind, closed it again. He looked the same as he had a week ago. Gerard sort of wished he didn’t. “Um,” Frank finally said. His tongue poked out over his bottom lip, fiddled with his lip ring, and he took a deep breath in the way that suggested a monologue was imminent.

Just like that, Gerard’s well of patience dried up. Overwhelmed with heat and fatigue and the still-loud buzzing in his head, he pushed past a surprised Frank, stomped up to the door and threw it open, the knob whacking into the wall. The house was suffocatingly warm. Gerard flung his keys onto a countertop and ripped off his suit jacket, tossing it onto the back of a kitchen chair as he beelined for the freezer.

“Gerard?” he heard from Frank, still on the porch. “I - uh. I guess it would be stupid to ask if you’re okay.”

Gerard rolled his eyes to himself. He tugged open the freezer door and snatched the mostly full bottle of vodka off the top shelf before slamming it shut again; pressing the cold bottle against his neck, he made for the thermostat in the hall and turned it down to a sane temperature. The air conditioning rumbled to life. In the kitchen, Frank finally followed Gerard inside the house, and the back door swung hesitantly shut.

“I just wanted to make sure you…” Frank trailed off as Gerard breezed through the kitchen and past him toward the basement. “Is that vodka?”

“Yep,” said Gerard, wrenching off the cap and hooking it toward the trash can. It bounced off the lip and clattered to the linoleum instead. Gerard ignored it, and took a huge swig on his way down the basement steps. It burned like a motherfucker going down between the cold and the alcohol, but he felt better already. He kicked off his dress shoes next to his nightstand and yanked at his tie until it was loose enough to pull over his head.

“I don’t think that’s good for you,” Frank called through the open basement door, and Gerard snorted.

“Thanks,” he replied, short. He set down the vodka long enough to undo his belt and deposit himself onto his bed. Once settled, he grabbed it and gulped down another mouthful. “I’ll add self-flagellation to my to-do list.”

Frank came down the steps then, looking unsure of himself, and stopped on the landing. He blinked at Gerard’s room for a long moment while Gerard tried to ignore him and stubbornly kept his gaze trained on his  _ Akira _ poster instead. “You know,” Frank said after a beat, “this is pretty much exactly what I thought your room would look like. Especially the huge laundry piles.” He flashed a teasing smile Gerard caught out of the corner of his eye. “Smells way better than I was imagining, though. You hiding candles in here?”

Gerard flipped him off without looking at him, but otherwise said nothing. He wished Frank would just tell him whatever he’d come to say and get it over with. His fingers were going numb around the vodka bottle; he folded one of his legs and propped the bottle behind his knee instead. Frank’s smile waned when Gerard still didn’t return it, and then dropped off. He cleared his throat. 

Another tense silence passed between them. Gerard’s exasperation grew the longer it dragged on, until finally he heaved an aggravated sigh and ground the heel of his palm against his eye as he bit out, “Listen dude, I’m really tired and today has been the fucking mother of all shitty days, so if you’re gonna just, like, pussyfoot around and stare at your shoes, either spit it out or leave.”

Frank’s head snapped up. His mouth hung open for a split second in shock before he sputtered out, “I’m not - I’m just trying - Jesus. Okay, you’re right.” Frank rubbed a hand over his neck and looked down at the carpet with his brow furrowed and his mouth pursed. The buzzing in Gerard’s head suddenly shot way up in volume. He grabbed for the vodka again and flexed his fingers on his free hand, trying not to let it show on his face. “I’m sorry,” Frank said at last. Gerard took a fortifying swig. “Um. I know how much your grandma meant to you. And I’m sure the whole thing’s been a total nightmare since you got home, so I’m sorry if you’ve been, you know, stressed about everything.”

Gerard nodded, once. The backs of his eyes were starting to get sore from all the noise in his head. He gripped the bottle tight with both hands.

Frank glanced down at it, and then back at Gerard’s face, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. He seemed to debate something with himself, and then he blew out a breath and began, “Gerard, look, I know you’re having a hard time and all, but it’s only three in the afternoon - "

“Don’t,” insisted Gerard, cutting Frank off as fast as he could. He furiously shook his head and chugged probably a good half a cup. “Don’t start. Don’t fucking  _ start _ . I’m not gonna do this with you right now. I’m so fucking tired, Frank, you have no fucking idea.”

“I get that,” Frank tried to say, and he probably wanted to say something else, too, but the buzzing had reached a fever pitch and Gerard couldn’t hear himself  _ think _ anymore and it hurt to breathe and even though he could feel the alcohol thrumming through his veins it wasn’t  _ helping _ and before he really even knew it was happening, he hauled up to his knees and hurled the vodka bottle across the room straight at the  _ Akira _ poster. It shattered. Glass and alcohol sprayed the width of the wall, soaking and shredding the poster and everything tacked near it. Gerard sank back on his haunches, shaking, his hands numb, his breathing uneven and fast.

“Fuck,” he heard Frank choke out under his breath. “Holy fuck.”

Gerard screwed his eyes shut, clamped his hands over his mouth, and screamed into his palms.

The mattress shifted a couple seconds later, and two arms flung themselves around him; he lashed out against them, but Frank was stronger than him, and he held fast even as Gerard thrashed and flailed. “Stop - Gerard, fucking stop fighting me, come on!” As he struggled, Gerard heard a raw, harrowing sound like an animal in pain, and it took him a moment to connect it to the burning in his throat and realize that it was coming from him. He was so surprised that he stopped fighting, and Frank took the opportunity to hug him even tighter. “Just hold still,” Frank begged him, sounding out of breath. “I know it hurts. I know, sweetheart, and I’m so sorry, but you have to just feel it and get it over with.”

Gerard sobbed, and tasted salt. Frank gripped the back of Gerard’s shirt with one hand, and cradled his head in the other. Gerard pressed his forehead against Frank’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t here,” he bawled, giving voice at last to the truth beneath the static. “She’s gone, and I wasn’t here for her, and I can’t - I can’t - " His voice broke, and he cried into Frank’s t-shirt while Frank stroked his hair and stayed silent. When Gerard calmed down enough to speak, he had a sudden idea, and reached up to grab urgently to both of Frank’s shoulders. “Your watch,” he said, ragged. “You said - that one time, back when we first met, you said you took me with you.”

“No,” Frank said instantly, startled, and shook his head. “No. I can’t.  _ You _ can’t.”

“If it worked the first time - "

“It didn’t work the first time,” Frank interrupted. He moved to hold Gerard’s face between his hands. “You died. Remember? We had that huge argument at my place about it? You  _ died. _ ”

“Please,” Gerard begged, his eyes welling up again, and he clutched at Frank, who stared at him in shock. “I don’t care if it hurts, Frank, please.”

Frank, looking devastated, swallowed hard and shook his head again, slower. He wiped the tears on Gerard’s cheeks away with his thumbs, and then slipped his hands down underneath Gerard’s jaw. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “But we can’t. They’d kill us both if we tried.”

Gerard’s chin dropped. He slumped against Frank’s front with another sob, and Frank held him close, and apologized over and over again until Gerard ran out of tears.

Frank had to leave an hour or so after Gerard’s meltdown. He stayed long enough to help clean up the broken glass and ruined posters, and to watch part of Gerard’s favorite episode of  _ Next Generation _ with him (he also let Gerard put his head on his lap, which was nice). Gerard found himself dozing off less than halfway through, and only woke up when Frank gently slipped his knee out from under him.

“Sorry,” he said, when Gerard lodged his sleepy, wordless complaint and tried to wrap an arm around Frank’s leg. “They just sent me a new repair, I gotta go.”

“Fuck Them,” Gerard mumbled into Frank’s jeans, and Frank giggled.

“You said it. I’ll be back later to check up on you, okay?”

Gerard knew better than to get his hopes up, but he agreed, curling around the pillow Frank tucked under his cheek with his eyes closed. Frank squeezed his hand. A couple seconds later, there was that faint whooshing sound, and then the smell of burning wires. Gerard shuffled into the warm spot Frank had left on his bed and swallowed against the pang of loneliness that welled in his chest.

He wasn’t surprised when Frank didn’t come back that night. He tried not to be too disappointed.

* * *

They had another two weeks at home before they all were due back in L.A. to start working on the second album. Gerard spent the entire time locked in the basement. He slept for a lot of it, but kept himself busy during his waking hours with art projects and pieces that could have been songs with some work. He only left the house to re-up on cigarettes and vodka. His mom didn’t speak to him the rest of the time he and Mikey were home, even after he groveled and cried, which sucked. Mikey thawed out by the end of the first week, for the most part. They weren’t exactly hanging out, but Mikey stopped pretending there was a Gerard-shaped hole in reality every time Gerard went upstairs for Frankenberry. There were no band practices, or shows. Brian called to check in every couple days or so, but didn’t push them to get together, which was big of him. Gerard was very thankful for Brian.

_ “Are you sure you don’t need more time?” _ Brian asked on one of their calls the second week. Mikey was perched at the bottom of the basement stairs, his phone on speaker and balanced on one knee, while Gerard inked a piece he’d started a few days before at his desk. Gerard picked up his marker and shared a look with Mikey.  _ “It’s okay if you need, you know, another week or whatever. I could see if maybe Warner would be willing to let you stay in Jersey for pre-production - “ _

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Gerard interrupted, as Mikey viciously shook his head back and forth and mouthed  _ Mom _ at him before drawing his finger across his throat. Gerard gave him a wide-eyed, solemn nod -  _ For real _ , he mouthed back - before he continued, “I appreciate it though, Brian, really. Thank you.”

At the end of September, they flew back out to California to pile into the house the label rented for them in Encino and figure out what the second album was actually about. Gerard didn’t see Frank again until after they’d started getting settled; he turned around from emptying his suitcase into the dresser in his new room to find Frank hauling his duffel bag through the door.

“Is it cool if we share?” he said to Gerard without preamble, tossing his stuff onto the carpet. “I asked Bob first but he pushed me out and locked the door, so I think that’s a wash. Also, did Ray and Mikey kiss ass especially hard to get the master or what?”

Gerard snorted lightly, pushing his suitcase under his bed with his foot. “There’s a lot of hair products between the two of them, they needed the extra counter space.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “How was...whenever?”

Frank shrugged as he set down his backpack. He looked similar to when they’d first met, his hair black and choppy and falling into his eyes at the front, no new tattoos or piercings that Gerard could see. “Nothing too exciting. Went forward instead of back this time. No,” he said immediately, when Gerard’s eyes went huge and he leaned forward all excited, “No, I’m not going to tell you anything about it, and even if I could, it’s all part of a different timeline now anyway.” He rolled his eyes with a smirk when Gerard pouted and slumped back. “Don’t make that face at me. You’ll see the future eventually, you’ll just be calling it something different.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Gerard groaned, and got back to his feet. “You sound like the inspirational posters in a therapist’s office.”

“Whatever helps,” Frank said, glib, and giggled when Gerard shoved at him on his way into the hall. “Hey, wait, where are you going? You never said if it was okay for me to crash with you.”

Gerard pulled out his cigarettes and waved them at Frank. “Duh, Frankie. Where else are you gonna sleep? Outside?”

“It’s where he belongs,” Bob called, emerging from the other bedroom at the end of the hall. “I think I saw a shed out there in case it rains.”

“Hilarious, Bryar,” Frank retorted, and unzipped his duffel bag. “Out of all of you gross fuckers, I shower with the most regularity, so get bent.”

October clipped by at lightspeed. Between meetings with the label, meetings with Howard, their producer, who was fucking awesome, a whole bunch of marathon songwriting sessions that made multiple days bleed into one, and some really intense rounds of _Magic: The Gathering_, Gerard barely noticed the time pass. Until one day, he was out on the patio working through yet another draft of the still-untitled song he was writing and chain-smoking someone else’s cigarettes when he happened to glance up and found Frank and Mikey standing at the sliding glass door and watching him expectantly.

“Uh,” he said, startled.

“Jesus, we were gonna throw rocks at you next,” said Frank. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Do I need to worry about you in the event of an earthquake? I heard they have those here.”

Mikey swatted at Frank with an eye roll. “We’re going to a theater in Echo Park that’s marathoning J-horror films all day,” he said to Gerard, who suddenly got the feeling like he was missing something huge. “It’s only like, ten bucks a head. This fucking poser’s never seen  _ Jigoku, _ can you believe that shit? I told him he’s not allowed to have opinions on horror until he’s seen it in full, and he laughed like it was funny or something.”

Gerard shared a look with Frank, who looked fresh off of an argument about this very subject, and raised his eyebrows at Mikey. “Dude, the only reason  _ we’ve _ seen  _ Jigoku _ is because you took that Japanese film course and the TA hooked you up with bootlegs because he wanted to fuck you.”

“Who doesn’t?” Mikey sniffed, and Gerard laughed. “Frank’s full of shit, is what I’m saying.”

Frank heaved a faux-weary sigh. “Your brother is the biggest horror snob in the world,” he solemnly informed Gerard. “Bar none. That he has any friends at all is a feat and a marvel.”

“Big talk from a man whose favorite movie is  _ The  _ fucking  _ Texas Chainsaw Massacre, _ ” Mikey retorted. “Your birthday is wasted on you.”

Oh, shit. Gerard shoved his pencil behind his ear as it finally clicked. Was it already fucking  _ Halloween _ ? He was the worst friend ever, what the fuck, he hadn’t even told Frank happy birthday yet and it was already afternoon.

“So are you coming or what?” Mikey continued, crossing his arms over his chest. “ _ Jigoku _ ’s not till later, but they’re playing  _ Audition _ and  _ Shikoku _ before and I only got to see  _ Audition _ in a theater once.”

Frank looked to Gerard with big, beseeching eyes. “Please. You have to come as my buffer. He’s not even letting me get stoned before because I won’t appreciate the nuance or whatever. On my  _ birthday _ ,” he added, outraged, and shot Mikey a black look, who shrugged.

“Sorry for trying to make you cultured.”

Gerard put out his cigarette in the ashtray on the patio table and stood, grabbing his notebook as he went. “ _ Jigoku’ _ s really good, Frankie, even when you’re not stoned. I’ll go, just let me put this upstairs. Are Ray and Bob coming?”

“Nah, they went out to the studio not too long ago. We’re gonna watch  _ Audition _ again later, though, Ray says he found an extended edition on DVD.” Mikey pulled a skeptical face. “We’ll see about that. I think he just misread the box.”

The theater in Echo Park was less a theater and more a small warehouse with a projector in it. Mikey drove past it three times before they realized that yes, it  _ was _ in the strip mall next to a laundromat and a Thai place. Gerard felt a little like they were attending a gallery showing. There were a surprising number of people for a Friday matinee, although maybe that was just because of the holiday. And none of them were dressed up.  _ That _ was weirder than anything else. Halloween in Jersey was like a high holy day, people went all out with costumes and decorating and shit, but everyone here just looked like run-of-the-mill hipsters - venue included. The only indication that it was Halloween at all was a plastic jack-o-lantern on the table out front that held the attendance wristbands.

“Dude,” Frank lamented, after Gerard commented aloud on the lack of festivity. “California’s so lame. The leaves are still green and it’s still hot as balls and they don’t even celebrate Halloween properly. It’s just plain wrong.”

_ Shikoku _ wasn’t nearly as good as Gerard remembered it being, although he was pretty high the last time he’d seen it;  _ Jigoku _ was even better on a bigger screen, though. He kind of agreed with Frank afterward that it was scarier stoned, but that was true of most horror movies made before, like, the 80s, Gerard figured. They all got into a debate over depictions of Hell in film and why every interpretation of it was wrong on the way home, which became what they all thought Hell really was when they got mired in parking-lot Valley traffic, and they all agreed that Hell was probably just the 101 at rush hour.

“But the radio only plays shitty covers of your favorite songs,” said Frank, blowing smoke out of the passenger’s side window. “And they all sound like they’re playing on a turntable with a busted belt. So they, like, randomly speed up and slow down to super weird tempos.”

“And you’re running late for something, but you can’t remember what,” Gerard added.

“And the car’s on fire,” Mikey finished, “because it’s Hell.”

Frank disappeared not long after they got back to the house, which gave Gerard time to run to Kinko’s and hastily pull together the birthday present he’d started for Frank before the month got away from him - a better-inked and colored version of the bounty hunter comics he’d made when Frank was sick on the tour last year, all bound up - and get back just in time for trick-or-treating to start in the neighborhoods around them. Ray, Bob, and Mikey had set up something of a cave in the living room. They had blankets taped over the windows and what looked like every pillow in the house on the floor. Pizza, snacks, and an entire aisle’s worth of Halloween candy totally buried the coffee table.  _ Night of the Living Dead _ was starting on the TV.

“What the hell, is Frank not with you?” Ray demanded, as Gerard grabbed a beer out of the case on the floor. “We set all this up for him and he hasn’t been back for hours.”

“Wasn’t my turn to watch him,” Gerard replied with a shrug, and headed off down the hall to hide Frank’s present in his sock drawer. As soon as he opened the door, he got grabbed by the shirtfront and dragged inside. “Jesus fuck - "

“Relax, it’s me,” said Frank’s voice, although it sounded weird, and it wasn’t till Gerard finally shook him off and stepped back that he saw the plastic vampire fangs in Frank’s mouth. Frank beamed at him, and then shoved an identical pair into Gerard’s free hand. “Here, put these in.”

“Why?” Gerard asked, tossing his Kinko’s bag onto his bed so he could use both hands to rip open the packaging on the fangs. They smelled like powdered latex. He ducked into the bathroom across the hall to rinse them under the tap before he stuck them to his top teeth. “What are you hiding in here for?”

Frank grinned so big when he saw Gerard with the fangs in that his own fell out of his mouth. “Those look so fucking cool on you, oh my God. How do you do that? And I’m not hiding, I just got back."

“From where, Spencer’s?” said Gerard, watching as Frank pulled two small bottles of fake blood out of his pockets.

“Nah, 2018.” He handed a bottle to Gerard. “And before you ask, no, I’m still not telling you anything. All insights into the future are for me to know and you to find out.”

Gerard rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. Why the fangs and blood?”

Frank, in the middle of unscrewing the cap off the fake blood he still held, stopped and gave Gerard a look like Gerard was an especially stupid kindergartener. “Because, Gerard,” he said, heavy on exaggerated patience, “it’s Halloween. It’s also, as it happens, my birthday. And since you’re my best friend in the whole wide world, and since we already checked the horror movies box, you get to serve the honor of taking me around this expensive-ass neighborhood to go trick-or-treating. Because I  _ know _ these rich fuckers have full size candy bars and I want ‘em.” Frank peeled the safety foil off the bottle neck, and then poured its contents down the front of his t-shirt, saving a little to tip into his hand and smear over his neck and chin. Gerard burst out laughing watching him do it, and Frank glanced up at him and stuck out his tongue. “Fuck you, I’m a bloodcurdling creature of the night.”

“You are,” Gerard agreed, grinning, and made sure the shirt he was wearing was actually his to ruin before he followed suit with his own fake blood. “You should have told me you wanted to go trick-or-treating, I could have planned some cooler costumes.”

“What are you talking about? These  _ are _ cool costumes.” Frank tossed his now-empty bottle into the trash can by the door and picked up his pillow off his bed, yanking the pillowcase off of it at the bottom and leaving a bloody handprint stain. “People already think we’re vampires, we’re just choosing to embrace our true nature. Now come on, we gotta get out there before those little snot-nosed eight-year-olds take all my candy.”

They had to pass by the living room on their way out the front door, though, where the other three waylaid them by pelting Frank with fun size candy and yelling at them both to hang out for movie night. Frank seemed genuinely surprised to see their setup, and, unless Gerard was seeing things, a little misty-eyed by it. He had to promise they’d come back before anyone passed out, and they made Frank shotgun a beer before they were finally allowed to leave.

“I didn’t expect them to do anything,” Frank told Gerard, as they made their way down the sidewalk to the busier main drag of the neighborhood. “I sort of - didn’t think anyone noticed?”

Gerard bumped him with his shoulder. “‘Course we noticed. You have the coolest fuckin’ birthday out of all of us.”

Frank tongued the tip of one of his fangs thoughtfully. “I guess.” He bared his teeth at a tiny Batman shuffling by with their parents, and they shrank back in fear, grabbing onto their mother’s leg with both arms. “Oh no, I’m sorry,” he said instantly, but both parents just glared at him and hustled Batman away. Frank looked back at Gerard in dismay. “Do I look that scary?”

“Always,” Gerard deadpanned. Frank smacked his shoulder. “But by all means, continue terrorizing the little bastards. By the look of this neighborhood, they’re sheltered enough to deserve it.”

They made their way through four or five different cul-de-sacs, and scared the living shit out of a bunch of the kids milling around; one tiny bumblebee, who couldn’t have been more than a year old, got one look at Gerard’s face and burst into tears. Frank gave him a lot of shit for that one. Most of the houses tolerated the fact that they both were at least a decade too old to be trick-or-treating, but there were a few who got annoyed, and one old lady at the tail end of their run refused to actually give them anything until Frank turned on the puppy-dog eyes and pleaded with her that it was his birthday and he knew he was officially not a kid anymore but could she please humor him for one last Halloween? She grudgingly gave him a single Tootsie Roll, and Frank gave her one of his thousand-watt smiles, and as soon as they were out of earshot of her front door, he exchanged a look with Gerard and flipped off her house.

“Sour old bitch. It’s fuckin’ Halloween, asshole, lighten the hell up.”

They finished off the street, and then decided to call it; it was all hills, and Gerard was not anything close to what he would call in shape, and most people were turning off their porch lights anyway. It had cooled off a lot while they’d been out, with a good breeze, and even though it was still too manicured and green, it felt at least a little closer to home. Frank shared his wares as they ambled back toward the rental, handing Gerard all the candy with gelatin in it, and they talked about everything from the worst punk bands they knew of, to ideas they had about the record, to how weird it was that the decorated houses here weren’t a patch on the ones back home, even though these people definitely had way more money than they did in Jersey.

It was the longest they’d hung out, just the two of them, since before the Europe tour. Gerard silently marveled at this behind the cigarette they’d been passing back and forth. Where the fuck did the time keep going?

“Ooh, interesting,” said Frank, and Gerard zoned back in to find them stopped in front of a locked gate with a sign bolted to it that said LOS ANGELES DEPARTMENT OF WATER AND POWER PROPERTY: NO TRESPASSING. Behind it, a concrete path curved around and up. Frank walked up to the gate and threaded his fingers through the chain link, and then looked back over his shoulder to shoot Gerard a mischievous grin. “There’s something so inviting about a ‘keep out’ sign, don’t you think?”

“Frankie,” Gerard started, but it was too late; he sighed in resignation as Frank dropped his pillowcase on the ground and scaled the gate with ease. “Dude, rich people call the cops,” he said, once Frank landed on the other side and brushed off his jeans. “If someone sees us back here, we’re totally going to jail.”

“On the contrary, mon frère,” said Frank, grabbing onto the fence from the other side, and beaming at Gerard. “ _ You _ will be going to jail. I will be exploiting my unfair advantage and getting out with my watch. Can you throw the candy over?”

Gerard glared at Frank in outrage, but did as he asked, and then reached up to get ahold of the top pole before using the padlock as a foothold and jumping over. Frank helped steady him when he wobbled the landing, and then threw an arm around his neck as Gerard got his feet back under him.

“Have I told you lately you’re my favorite fucking person?” Frank said, and mashed his lips against Gerard’s cheek. “Because you’re totally my favorite fucking person, Gee. And now, for your trouble, I offer this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic pop-tab tube, which he opened to shake out two joints, and handed one to Gerard.

“Dude,” said Gerard, a slow smile spreading over his face as he mentally upgraded the night from  _ a pretty nice hangout _ to  _ best fucking Halloween ever. _ “Where did you find a plug out here?”

Frank stuck his remaining joint behind his ear and busied himself with tying his pillowcase onto his belt. “2018. I think the place was in Silverlake? I dunno, L.A.’s got so many fuckin’ neighborhoods and they all look the same.”

“You went to the future to buy  _ weed _ ?” Gerard asked, a small laugh bubbling out of his chest, and Frank gave him a good-natured eye roll in response.

“Not  _ just _ to buy weed, I also did a repair.” He succeeded with the pillowcase, and waved Gerard onward; they set off shoulder to shoulder up the path. “It’s such a pain in the ass to try and get weed the 2003 way and the quality sucks, so it made sense to pick it up while I was there. Way easier. They’ve got these pens and shit. You don’t even need a card, and it’s  _ way _ cheaper, I got both of these for like thirty bucks and they’re top shelf.”

Gerard gawked at Frank. “Wait, you can get legal weed in the future? Just, like, wherever?”

“Yeah, dude.” Frank smirked, and then amended, “Well, not wherever. But definitely L.A. There are gonna so many dispensaries out here, man, it’ll be like Starbucks, you'll drive past four of them on any given errand.”

Gerard shook his head in amazement. “Man. The future sounds fucking awesome.”

Frank stopped short then, and grabbed Gerard’s wrist to stop him, too. His eyes shone in the dark, and he said, way more intensely than Gerard thought the moment warranted, “It is, Gerard. It is totally fucking awesome. I promise.”

Gerard raised his eyebrows at him, and when Frank just kept  _ looking  _ at him, he shook him off with an awkward laugh. “Okay, weirdo, got it. Future good. Has weed. Will stick around to see.”

Frank nodded once, solemn, as though Gerard had sealed a pact or something. He pulled the joint from behind his ear and stuck it in the corner of his mouth while he fished in his pocket, and emerged with a lighter. He lit Gerard’s for him, and then his own, and held it aloft in a facsimile of a toast. “This strain’s called Birthday Cake. I thought it was fitting. Happy birthday to me!”

The path, it turned out, was a steep walk pretty much straight up the side of a hill. They had to stop a bunch of times to catch their breath - “California has too many fucking  _ hills _ ,” Gerard complained bitterly to Frank at one point, who just made a pained sound of agreement at him - and about three quarters of the way to the top, the pavement stopped, replaced by hard-packed dirt instead. Gerard looked down at it in disbelief.

“Fuck, we’re  _ hiking _ ,” he said. “This is officially a hike. There’s dirt, Frank. Where the fuck are we?”

Frank shoved sweaty hair out of his face and gave an almighty shrug. “I have no fucking clue. If we can get on top of this motherfucker, though, I think we could figure it out.”

So they kept going, even though it sucked and Gerard wanted to die and felt like he might with the way his chest was burning. And then, all of a sudden, the path opened up to a huge, flat dirt clearing, with a pergola at the far edge covering a bench; they walked over to it, and spread out underneath them was a vast grid of twinkling lights, a little hazy with smog. Gerard could just make out the outlines of the San Gabriel Mountains on the other side of the valley. From here, they looked small. It all looked more like a movie set than real life, even though the longer Gerard gazed at it, the more it seemed to move. The 101 glowed like an incandescent artery to the north, tiny dots of cars gliding along its length like blood cells.

“Whoa,” Frank breathed somewhere to his right. Gerard just nodded. He’d never seen a view like this in person, excluding the view from the plane. Whatever, California did have something going for it, he supposed.

They sat on the bench, shoulders pressed together, and silently finished off the weed. The cooling breeze felt good after all the godforsaken exercise. Gerard leaned down to put out his crutch in the dirt, and then crossed his arms over his chest and stretched his legs out in front of him with a deep breath. He didn’t feel nearly as awful as he might have expected after basically climbing a fucking mountain. Actually, he felt good. Like  _ really  _ good. He caught himself smiling at nothing, and he laughed, and Frank glanced over at him curiously, and Gerard laughed more, and Frank grinned and said, “Told you it was top shelf.”

Gerard let his head loll back. “Yeah. No shit.” His brain felt like it was floating around inside his skull. Well. He guessed it sort of was. Suspended in...brain juice. Or whatever. He laughed again, and tipped his head onto Frank’s shoulder, and closed his eyes. Frank had comfy shoulders.

They were silent for another little while. And then Frank said, in a soft, sort of halting way, “Gee?”

Gerard hummed.

“Can I, uh. Would it be okay if - um.” Frank shifted, pulling his hands out of his jacket pockets, and put his right hand palm up on his knee. His fingers curled in a little. He cleared his throat. “Can I hold your hand?”

Gerard was so stoned, he didn’t even really think about it. Just unfolded his arms and slipped his hand into Frank’s, twining their fingers together like it was nothing. Like they did this all the time. Frank’s palm was warm, but his fingers were cold; Gerard shuffled closer, tucking their hands into his hoodie pocket to try and warm them up.

“Thanks,” Frank murmured, amused, and squeezed Gerard’s hand. Gerard squeezed back, and said nothing, because suddenly his heart was in his throat and blocking off his vocal cords. Was this something they did now? Maybe he was making too big a deal out of it. It wasn’t the first time, after all. He felt Frank draw in a deep, soundless breath, and then lean down so his cheek was resting on top of Gerard’s head. A surge of pleasure rippled through Gerard like a beam of sunlight, so heady that he almost shivered. He smiled to himself instead.

Another minute or so passed. The night was hushed around them, a bubble of quiet atop a world of noise.

Frank took another breath, this time with purpose, and said, “Gerard, um. There’s...I have something I’ve been meaning to tell you about. For awhile.”

Oh shit. Gerard ignored the way his stomach dropped out, and made what he hoped was an encouraging noise.

“You remember when I first told you about Them?” Frank went on. “About how They erased my first timeline and made me join this one instead?”

“Yeah,” said Gerard, because it wasn’t like you could forget about a conversation like that. He rubbed Frank’s thumb with his own.

Frank said nothing for a bit, and then he continued, his voice strained, “There’s another half to that story I never told you. The whole reason I was sent to you in the first place.” He lifted his head, and Gerard followed suit, sitting up to look at Frank properly. Frank was staring out over the valley. His eyes shone. “Your 9/11 repair was supposed to be the last one I ever did. If it had gone according to plan, my contract with Them would’ve been over as soon as you got on the ferry, and I would’ve gone back to 2016 where I came from.”

Gerard nodded, remembering the first time Frank told him about it. “They extended you instead. By...how long was it?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Frank blinked a few times, and Gerard realized that he was trying not to cry. He gripped Frank’s hand tighter and pressed in. Frank smiled weakly, and went on, “There was a reason I wanted to leave Them for good, beyond, you know, getting home and back to normal.” He swallowed, hard, and at last he turned his head to look at Gerard. “Her name was Jamia.”


End file.
